Pushpa: The Rise Movie Review

What is Pushpa The Rise

Pushpa The Rise is a 2021 Telugu action thriller directed by Sukumar. Allu Arjun plays Pushpa Raj, a red sandalwood labourer who rises through the ranks of one of Andhra Pradesh’s most dangerous smuggling networks through sheer cunning, defiance, and an almost pathological hatred of being looked down upon. The film grossed over 360 crore rupees worldwide and turned Allu Arjun into a pan-India star. Its sequel Pushpa The Rule released in December 2024 and broke records across the country.

The Story

Pushpa Raj carries logs on his back in the Seshachalam hill forests. Nobody takes him seriously. That is their mistake. Quietly brilliant and impossible to intimidate, he spots gaps in the red sandalwood trade that everyone else has missed and begins working his way up from the bottom. As his influence grows, so does the attention of a corrupt and brutal police force. SP Bhanwar Singh Shekhawat, played by Fahadh Faasil, enters the picture and the film shifts into a different gear entirely.

The story is simple on the surface. A poor man wants power and takes it. What makes it compelling is how Sukumar refuses to sand down the edges of his protagonist. Pushpa is arrogant, occasionally cruel, and completely magnetic.

The World Sukumar Built

Red sandalwood grows almost exclusively in the Seshachalam forest range of Andhra Pradesh. It is listed as a threatened species and its export is tightly restricted, which makes it worth enormous sums on black markets in East Asia. Sukumar spent years researching the actual networks operating in the region before writing the script.

That research shows. The film does not feel like a crime drama set in a generic forest. It feels like a specific place with specific people running a specific illegal operation, and that groundedness is a big reason the film works.

Allu Arjun in the Best Form of His Career

There have been physically commanding performances in Telugu cinema before. What Allu Arjun does here is different. Every gesture, every pause, every way Pushpa holds his body communicates something about the character. The swagger is not performance for the camera. It reads as something that came from inside the character.

Fahadh Faasil’s entry as Shekhawat is one of the most electric character introductions in recent Telugu film. He arrives late and immediately makes you feel the threat.

Why It Works

• Devi Sri Prasad’s music runs through the film like a second script, setting tone as effectively as the dialogue
• Sukumar gives the working-class protagonist real complexity instead of making him a simple underdog
• The Seshachalam setting is used as character, not just backdrop
• The film earns its runtime because almost nothing in it is wasted

Bottom Line

Pushpa The Rise is the kind of film where you understand about twenty minutes in that you are watching something that will be talked about for a long time. Allu Arjun commits completely, Sukumar builds a world worth spending three hours in, and the ending sets up a sequel with genuine stakes. Watch the original Telugu version if you can.