February 22, 2013 Anil Kumar
We have heard about 'one film wonder' many a time in the film industry and it has be proven by many directors, it's not wrong at all; If they get a chance to direct a movie they go all out, unleash their creativity and make sure they get a hit. Now what is left to display in the second movie?
We are reminded of a sweet lime, all the juice extracted with only the body left! The directors now have a onus. They have taken an advance and they need to fulfill that responsibility, so they advance not on fresh stories but formula movies and the stories borrowed from neighbouring language movies. If the story works out fine but there is something called the second hurdle, the stumbling block. We can always push our failure on that cinema sentiment.
Nandini Reddy's journey began that way..we mean Ala Modalaindhi. So we step into the theatre hoping the second hurdle is confined to male directors alone and not to the fair sex. But did she do justice to the title with her work? Lets read on.
Byrraju (Siddharth) is a man who indulges in taking loans and escaping from the ones who have given it to him. He takes a loan, a mammoth one from a Bihari Seth and is unable to repay it. Sayaji Shinde thinks of a plan for the repayment, since he cannot repay he makes sure his sister is married to Byrraju, but during the wedding he runs away and reaches Hyderabad. The Seth follows him with his army in a jeep and learn Telugu on the way.
Here in Hyderabad, he steals Shreya's (Samantha) job and they come to a mutual agreement to work together. They get into a problem, quit and establish their own event management company. With her felicity in language and his intelligence they do well in business. Shreya falls for him but Byrraju's focus is always on money and has a poor impression on girls, he inlcudes Shreya in the list and tells his friend he is not serious about her.
Shreya hears this, heart broken, she asks him to leave. Byrraju now has his own company and makes Saraswati (Nithya Menon) his colleague. Did the fracas between the lead pair end? Who is Saraswathi and what is her history? You want to know watch Jabardasth!
If you have seen Band Baaja Baaraat, you will know in a few minutes into the story that it is a direct lift and just the Bihari and Nithya Menon's episode isn't there. Because of the inclusion of these two trivial parts, our director unabashedly, without any qualms calls it a BV Nandini Reddy film. The film producer too might have felt for this small part, it was not necessary to spend crores on the remake rights, so they took a direct lift from the original, not even giving a courtesy card to the original story writer.
But did she do a neat job of copying without giving away doubts? Is there life in the story? Naah! Remember her first film? She fetched brownie points even while flashing those title cards..putting on display the childhood pictures of the cast and crew. She copied the same idea from her own movie and did not end with it, she copied the film from a Hindi movie. Did she prepare the audiences for it?
In the first half there is no movement in the story, no entertaining scenes either. She thought by pooling four or five comedians in one scene, the humour will spring alive. What we see is screams, cacophony but no comedy. She kind of regaled the audiences with Tagubothu Ramesh in her first film, now that particular character has repeated his act so many times that you feel repulsive.
Knowing about such repetitions in films, the director still chose to have him. That is just nothing but taking the audiences for granted. The other comedians couldn't make people laugh too, they were just freaking out on the screen and having fun at the hapless people's expense.
Though Siddharth looked thin in the film, he was full of beans. If we could sit through the film it is only because of Siddharth who kept everyone awake. Samantha did quite an over action, and gave unnecessary expressions. Srihari's part was an absolute waste, instead of becoming a plus it brings down the graph of the film further. Only in our Telugu cinema can a don who terrorises a nation is capable of becoming a thorough joker. The don's fetish for movies and Samantha's ‘pelli chupulu' is all not new.
Nithya Menon gives some relief in this cut and paste movie. Her smile and face is captivating. Thaman as usual gives readymade tunes and camera gives the story a rich feel. The film crumbles totally by interval as the story, the script's base is shaky.
Those who saw the director's first film will be disappointed with this, you get a feeling if she did this? The energy and the force in the title is not present in the content. But don't lose heart, there is plus too. The audiences have the freedom and discretion to decide, read reviews and save money from not seeing Jabardasth!
