Verdict: SUPER HIT EXCELLENT (4.00/5.00)


My expectations:

"SUKUMAR..... SUKUMAR.... SUKUMAR...." . He is not a star. He is not a MEGASTAR and yet the profuse openings for this movie earmarked his ability to draw crowds, much to my surprise. This is undoubtedly the most awaited film for me this year. He has shown great promise and excelled in all departments of movie making in Arya.  I expected him to show the same level of expertise for the movie Jagadam. Not only as a director, I liked him for his personal interests too, so I was pretty much sure that I would like this movie, however it might be.

My view:

It has been a common criticism that telugu industry doesn't produce movies of the international caliber. Another point of great concern is the lack of variety often found in other regional language movies. Ten minutes into the movie, you would feel that Sukumar is the one who would eventually fill that void. Hollywood style hero introduction and taking style on par with some good tamil cinema would ascertain.

"Man was the product of animal instincts placed in a social context and governed by a consciousness marked by exceptional powers of memory and introspection" says Sigmund Freud. The movie's story is based on this single theory. The society and his family eventually buoy the animal instincts inside the hero.

Hero maintains a small gang in Maisamma Center. To ensure his dominance over others he starts dandha under the local goon  Bottu Manikyam (Pradeep Ravath) with the help of Laddu (A S Ravi Kumar Chowdary) another goonda in the same area. How he evolves into a rowdy sheeter and in turn spoils his life forms the rest of the story.

The one point which impressed me a lot is that the audience see the hero as a character who spoils his life, where at the same point hero thinks otherwise.  A few scenes which had psychological impact on the hero as a child were well handled by the director. The director apart from elevating the heroism at the same time ensured that the truth that his life is getting ruined reaches the audience.

The movie takes a beating as the love track and the heroine enters. The director failed miserably in the characterisation of the heroine. The role of the heroine is raunchy which is unlikely for a telugu heroine. With a  small twist towards the interval episode, one would expect a promising second half with good technical values very similar to first half.

But the second half treatment is painfully slow as he shows how hero evolved into a rowdy sheeter. There were plenty of unnecessary scenes in the second half, which could have been easily avoided to make second half much interesting. The prompt climax elevated enough by the performance of Ram and taking by Sukumar ends the movie on a good note.

Artists and Technicians:

Sukumar proved himself that he has the caliber on par with Mani Ratnam, Shankar and Ram Gopal Verma, the only other requirement here is a proper script with tight screenplay. Arya proved how good his skills were in screenplay department, this movie indicated how much hold he has on technical aspects of film making. I was awestruck with some scenes and how they were handled differently.

One other person who needs a special mention is Devi Sri Prasad, who gave excellent tunes and played a major role ensuring very good openings. The background music is his career-best.

Ram earlier copied PAWAN KALYAN style of acting to the tee, in Devadas movie. So the director has taken utmost care in designing his looks and dressing and also acting. Ram's acting in the climax needs a special mention here. He needs to work on his dialogue delivery and try to decrease the speed with which he delivers them.

Last but not the least, Ratnavelu, the cinematographer, has done an excellent job. The tint he has used for the Jagadam title itself shows how he tried to justlfy the story of the movie. He has given importance to each and every scene be it a small one or a major scene and used some or the other cinematography technique to elevate it.

Box Office Prediction:

The movie has been a pretty good experience for me, but the audience felt otherwise. No where is the talk positive among the audience. There were cries of flop and utter flop among several other fellow audience, but no body even mentioned that the movie was good. High Expectations has been the bane of this movie. Devoid of these expectations the movie would have probably fared much better than it would now. Sukumar and Aditya, the producer are to be blamed here for the over - shooting of the budget, which was totally uncalled for given the image of the hero. Even the greedy buyers who thought of cashing-in on the director's name, will be left empty handed, deservingly.

Verdict as a reviewer:

Its not necessary that everyone has to like a movie. This is a must watch for those who intend to see a different and meaningful movie. The director doesn't go preachy with the movie and one point he wants to be made is how a person meets his downfall by treading in a violent path. The fate of the movie would be otherwise, had it been produced by Dil Raju.

Tailpiece: "Bad time Sukumar - Lucky Allu Arjun".