JALSA Movie Review

Banner: Gita Arts

Presents – Allu Ramalingaiah

Producer – Allu Arvind

Story, screenplay, dialogues and direction – Trivikram Srinivas.

Released on: April 02, 2008

Music – Devisri Prasad

Action – Peter Haynes

Camera – Guhan, Rasool

cast:Pawan Kalyan, Ileana, Parvati Melton, Kamalini Mukherjee, Mukhesh Rushi, Prakash Raj, Tanikella Bharani, Uttej, Ali, Sivaji, Sunil, Brahmanandam, Dharmavarapu Subrahmanyam, Mallikarjuna Rao Satyam Rajesh, Pruthvi, and others

Trivikram Srinivas, who entered the Telugu Cinema as a story writer, excelled as dialogue writer too. After giving successful stories to some films, he became a director. He had got an opportunity to direct Mahesh Babu. With Pawan Kalyan facing hiccups with successive flops, Allu Aravind had decided to rope in Trivikram, who gave a hit like Athadu of Mahesh Babu, for Pawan Kalyan's flick to be produced under Gita Arts banner. The film achieved a big hype right from the day the muhurat was shot and the audiences in general and Pawan Kalyan's fans in particular kept high expectations on the film.

Sanjay (Pawan Kalyan) is the son of a poor farmer (Pruthvi) and he lives in a village, which has no facilities like school and hospital and not even potable water. While his brother dies with heart disease, Sanjay's parents end life after crop loss. In order to take revenge against the society, Sanjay joins Naxalites and starts his career from a courier boy to a group leader. Once an encounter takes place and Sanjay loses most of the cadre. He is caught by a police officer (Prakash Raj). He helps a minister from a landmine blast before surrendering to police to join the mainstream. Later, he joins a college and completes three PG courses and continues his fourth PG course. During his college days, Sanjay falls in love with the SP's daughter Indu (Kamalini Mukherjee). He could not convince the SP and Indu marries an NRI.

After a few months, he accidentally meets Jyotsna @ Joe (Parvati Melton) and Bhagmati @ Bhagi (Ileana). Both lose their heart to Sanjay but the latter out-rightly rejects Joe. Learning this, Bhagi tries to attract him in several ways and finally succeeds in wining his heart. Incidentally, Bhagi is the sister of Indu. Again, Bhagi's father refuses alliance with Sanjay. Unintentionally, Sanjay gets into a tussle with a factionist and land mafia leader Damodar Reddy (Mukhesh Rushi) by thrashing his son. Damodar Reddy stays in jail, but runs all his dhandha from the prison with the help of his right hand Sreenu (Tanikella Bharani). In order to frame Sanjay and harass him mentally, Damodar Reddy manages to fix the marriage of Bhagi with his son and takes her away. In the climax as usual, the heroine's father pleads with the hero to save his daughter and the hero saves her. Instead of killing Damodar Reddy, he makes him realise his mistake. However, unable to digest the defeat he dies of stroke. The film ends with the happy note with the union of Sanjay and Bhagi.

PLUS: It was Pawan Kalyan, who shouldered the entire responsibility to make the film lively from beginning till the end. He has put excellent performance and appeared as a normal college student. His make up and costumes reminded the audience of his earlier films Tholiprema, Khushi and Bhadri. Once again Pawan Kalyan maintained excellent comedy timing all through the first half. Ileana appeared in girl to the next door kind of role, sans unnecessary or vulgar exposing. The director should be commended as all the other directors in her previous films focused on her bellybutton and waist, but Trivikram portrayed her in a decent role. She has also performed her character with chirpiness and chivalry. However, Parvathi Melton has appeared too heavy beside Pawan Kalyan and her character is filled with oomph. Kamalini's role is limited to a couple of scenes. Another notable plus point in the film is the performance of Mukhesh Rushi and the stylish characterization of his role. Prakash Raj is okay as heroine's father. Comedy by Sunil is adequate. Technically, music remained another major highlight. It is the debut combination of Devisri Prasad and Pawan Kalyan and the former gave lilting tunes. The audio remained chartbuster since its release. The voice-over by Mahesh Babu is another highlight of the movie.

MINUS: Director Trivikram Srinivas has failed to do justice to all the departments he handled. Though the storyline is good, the screenplay is very fragile and delicate. He keeps the audiences in good humour all through the first half. At the same time, he maintains the love thread neatly. The lengthy dialogue before the interval bang bores the audiences and the same continued in the second half for a long time. It appears that he has dragged several scenes unnecessarily. Guinness record holder Brahmanandam's role is unnecessarily wasted and his characterisation is very poor as he is seen always getting slaps from the hero. Choreography of songs is another major minus point. Only a couple of songs are shot well. Action scenes though appeared stylish, they are very less impressive.

REMARKS: The film has opened with an average talk. Though his fans continue to throng the theatres but the director really has failed to reach their expectations. However, he is able to satisfy the audiences to certain extent with his mark of comedy and dialogue punch till the interval bang and again in the climax. There was a gossip that the film had a hint about Chiranjeevi's political entry and several theatres were reportedly booked by the MLAs and other people's representatives at various places in the State. It was very disappointing that all their hopes are shattered with no such announcement in the movie.