Commercial cinema format effective in inspiring masses: Ram Pothineni

Chennai, Sep 29: Actor Ram Pothineni, whose Telugu action-drama "Hyper" is slated for a worldwide release on Friday, feels the most effective way to inspire the masses is via the commercial cinema format.

"I believe commercial cinema is very powerful as it helps in reaching out to the masses. If you want to inspire the masses, you need to take commercial cinema route," Ram told IANS.

He cited the example of movies made by well-known filmmaker S. Shankar.

"While several of his films ('Gentleman', 'Indian' and 'Sivaji') have touched upon corruption, they were widely accepted because they were commercially entertaining," he said.

As much as "Hyper" is your quintessential commercial outing, it is also packed with a social message.

"When you know how to entertain audiences even when the purpose of the film is to create awareness about a social cause, the message you want to say is respected and it is imbibed. The social angle needs to be sugar-coated with commercial elements to appeal to a larger section of the audience," he said.

"Hyper" sees the reunion of Ram with director Santhosh Srinivas. They had earlier worked together in 2011 Telugu blockbuster "Kandireega".

"Santhosh and I were aware of the sky-high expectations audiences will have from our combination. When we decided to come together, we didn't want another film along the same lines of 'Kandireega'. However, we wanted a film as entertaining as 'Kandireega', and one that belonged to a different league of its own," he said.

The project also stars Sathyaraj, and it's his second project with Ram in a row.

"He is one of the pillars of the film. As much as I always wanted to do a film with a social angle, I felt I didn't have the age or stature to make audiences take me or the message I want to deliver seriously. We brought Sathyaraj sir on board because he will be taken seriously," he said.

Produced by 14 Reels Entertainment, the film also stars Raashi Khanna and Posani Krishna Murali.