Billa (2009 film)

Billa is a 2009 Indian Telugu-language action thriller film directed by Meher Ramesh. The film stars Prabhas in a dual role alongside Krishnam Raju, Anushka Shetty, Namitha, Rahman, and Kelly Dorjee. A remake of the 1978 Hindi film Don by Salim–Javed, it is the second remake of Don in Telugu after Yugandhar (1979). The film began its production in October 2008 and was released on 3 April 2009 to positive reviews.

Plot
The story begins with an underworld don Billa hiding and operating out of Malaysia, hiding from Interpol's international criminal list. Krishnamoorthy, an ACP working for the Interpol, has spent the last few years looking for Billa, leaving behind a life in India. During a chase with the police, Billa is severely wounded after an accident, and dies in front of the ACP. The ACP then secretly holds a funeral for Billa. Interpol Officer Dharmendra is assigned to work with the ACP to capture the elusive Billa as no-one knows of Billa's death. The ACP keeps the death of Billa as a secret even from his fellow officers, and tracks down a look-alike called Katikaranga (Ranga), a petty thief based in Visakhapatnam. He asks Ranga to infiltrate Billa's gang by pretending to be Billa. In return, he will make sure that the children Ranga adopted, Lakshmi and Sreenu, get a proper education in Hyderabad.

The ACP trains Ranga and sends him back to Billa's gang as a person who has lost his memory. Slowly Ranga starts to learn about Billa's gang and even speaks to Devil, Billa's boss, on the phone. He also gets attracted to one of the girl members of the gang, Maya (Anushka Shetty) who had been secretly plotting to kill Billa as he killed her brother Vikram and his fiancée Priya. Ranga then provides a pen drive with the secret information of the crime network to the ACP, but he is about to be killed by Maya who thinks he is Billa. At this juncture, the ACP arrives and tells her that he is Ranga and not Billa. Since then, she begins to assist Ranga and the ACP in their mission and soon falls in love with Ranga. Later before a party, Ranga secretly provides information to the ACP about a meeting of Billa's network, and Lisa, Billa's girlfriend, overhears his conversation. She challenges Ranga, but in the fight, he accidentally kills her. A shootout occurs at the party, and the ACP is secretly killed by someone, leaving his gun behind. Ranga finds the ACP's body and the gun, but is taken into the custody of the police team, now headed by Interpol Officer Dharmendra. He argues during interrogation that he is Ranga and not Billa to Dharmendra. Ranga mentions a piece of evidence – the pen drive, which may prove his innocence, but the pen drive is nowhere to be found.

Unable to prove his innocence, he escapes from a police van. He phones Dharmendra and asks him to meet at the Aero bridge. Here it is revealed that Dharmendra is none other than the Underworld Crime Don Devil, and he is the one who killed ACP Krishnamoorthy. While escaping from Devil's gang, he meets Officer Adithya, who apparently had the pen drive all along, and strikes a deal with Ranga to get hold of Devil. Meanwhile, Maya has been kidnapped by Devil after she tried to defend Ranga from Devil. Maya is tied up and kept in a car with her mouth taped shut. Ranga decides to pose as Billa to Devil, and provides Russian explosives to an arms dealer Rashid, who insisted on dealing with Billa. Enraged at being slighted by Rashid, following the completion of the deal, Devil and his henchman Ranjith fight with Ranga. Soon the police arrived and Devil, posing as Dharmendra, asks the police to arrest Ranga as Billa but gets shot by the squad of police and dies as the police have wired the entire conversation between Devil and Ranga, thus proving Ranga's innocence.

It ends with Ranga returning to Visakhapatnam with Maya, and deciding to start a school and college there with the government reward given to him and four suitcases of cash he stole from Billa's estate in Malaysia.

Development and casting
During the making of Kantri (2008), actor N. T. Rama Rao Jr. expressed his intention of making Billa (2007) in Telugu following his grandfather N. T. Rama Rao's Yugandhar (1979). Meher Ramesh, however, felt that Rama Rao Jr. would not fit into the role at that stage of his career. Ramesh also explored the idea of making the film with Ravi Teja, but dropped the idea due to budget constraints. Ramesh later approached Prabhas who was excited to work for the project. Prabhas' uncle, Krishnam Raju, was also on board for a pivotal role, marking their first on-screen collaboration. Ramesh cast Anushka Shetty as the female lead. Shetty worked for over two months to slim down for the role. Hansika Motwani readily agreed to act in the film when suggested by Ramesh. Namitha, like Shetty, lost weight before signing the film. Meher wanted either Sameer Reddy or Chota K. Naidu for the cinematography, but due to non-availability of dates from the both of them, Soundararajan was chosen instead, marking his debut in Telugu cinema.

Filming
The film was launched at Gopikrishna Pictures office on October 9, 2008. The film was shot extensively in Malaysia for three months. Filming was completed in 104 working days.

Music
The film's score and soundtrack was composed by Mani Sharma. The audio launch of Billa was held at Shilpakala Vedika on 18 March 2009 with Dasari Narayana Rao, S. S. Rajamouli, V. V. Vinayak, Gopichand and Allu Arjun as guests. Dasari Narayana Rao launched the music. The audio rights was bagged by Lahari Music. The song "My Name is Billa" was later re-used by Sharma for the Tamil film Sura (2010) as "Naan Nadanthaal Adhiradi" and "Bommali " as "Thanjavoor Jillakkaari".

Release and reception
The film was released on 3 April 2009.

Jeevi of Idlebrain stated "First half of the film is alright" but found the second half "a little disappointing" and "prolonged", while also stating "Prabhas’s makeover and styling as Billa and good production values" as positive points but "on the flip side, the second half should have been effectively handled." Critic of Indiaglitz called it "stylish, visually rich" but "Not much in content and depth though". Times of India wrote "If director Meher Ramesh believes that pretty damsels, exotic locales, swanky cars and stylised shots are the ingredients for a blockbuster, then he is grossly mistaken. Billa, the Telugu remake of Don, has more style than substance, and though Prabhas gives an impressive performance as a suave ruthless don, his effort seems to have gone in vain".

Box-office
Billa collected ₹19.3 Crore Distributors’ Share.