Plot:
Krishna (Naga Shourya) is an ambitious young man who arrives to Hyderabad in order to earn a sum of one crore rupees. He gets an offer of earning one crore by investing 2 lakhs of rupees. All he has to do is to fetch money by encashing from bank customers. He joins under a don named Srisailam and incidentally falls in love with Paru (Sonarika). Paru wants to leave for Dubai and asks Krishna to come along with him. However, Srisailam teams up with a minister (Kota Srinivasa Rao) for a huge amount of 2000 crores and plans to utilize Krishna for this regard and dispose him off later. The police commissioner of Hyderabad (Ashish Vidyarthi) works hard by enlisting all the goons of the city and exploit their properties. Krishna gets to know about this. How would Krishna deal with the evil plans of Srisailam and Police’s plan to encounter? Will he be successful in winning over his love and professional ambition? – forms the rest of the plot.
Performances:
Naga Shourya: This talented actor gets a mass role for the first time. He showed good transformation in body language and dialogue delivery. He looked more at ease in this film. Though he looked like imitating Ravi Teja in certain sequences, Naga Shourya proved himself that he can do mass roles as well. Instead of doing regular fight scenes to just fit into mass film, he followed the film’s script sincerely.
Sonarika: She looked chubby and glamorous. This new actress did not hesitate much for a lip lock scene either
Ashish Vidyarthi, Ajay, Ravi Kale, Kota Srinvasa Rao: They did ample justice for their respective roles. Saptagiri generates few laughs in the forced comedy episode. Tagubothu Ramesh does a tailor made role. The punches between Srinivasa Reddy and Satya came out well.
Direction:
After a long time, Chintakayala Ravi director Yogi made this film. He got a good chance to prove his worth once again. However, he couldn’t make the best use of it. There is no flaw in the story and the twist in climax was also interesting. But the director couldn’t handle the script properly. Though the taking was stylish, Yogi couldn’t maintain the tempo till the end. The story goes on in good pace until Krishna joins Srisailam’s gang. But the director couldn’t present the Srisailam’s gang activities and the much hyped Rs 2000 crore deal issue.
Interval Bang: It wasn’t so effective.
Second Half: The story doesn’t progress as it needs to be but the last 30 minutes brings back the pace and vigor. The crucial scenes were elevated well but it is a bigger question whether the common film goer can bear an hour long of sequences for such twist.
The story was well handled by director in the first 15 minutes and last 30 minutes but gives up during the middle. The love episode between Naga Shourya and Sonarika wasn’t effective either. There was no proper characterization for the heroine. It is indeed questionable on why a doctor falls for a careless young man like the hero. She keeps on saying her father doesn’t earn more than Rs 20,000 a month but arrives in classy costumes using iPhone. The director couldn’t do justice for not only the hero’s role but any role in the film. As a result, Jadoogadu fails to get into the expected range.
Merits:
-Take off and climax
-Sonarika’s glamour quotient
Demerits:
-Lack of proper characterization
-The first 30 minutes in second half
Others:
The film is quite good technically and camerawork is impressive. Jadoogadu is high on production values. Mani Sharma’s son Sagar Mahati debuted as music director with this film. He didn’t have much scope to prove his talent except for some re-recording bits. The songs were fine to watch on the silver screen but not great enough to listen even after the film gets over. The film is two and half hours long and it could have been easily trimmed for 30 minutes. Dialogues are good enough in certain sequences.
Verdict:
It is a commendable move by Naga Shourya to try a mass entertainer after getting introduced as a lover boy. But a good story and proper effort is needed for it. If an attempt is made without proper storyline and treatment, it will naturally affect the already established lover boy image too. Actors like Uday Kiran and Nitin also made this similar mistake and got their original lover boy image at stake. The first attempt for a mass film should have no flaws at all. Naga Shourya’s attempt this time can be called as a misfired bullet that might be liked by the audience to some extent and perform in Box Office with great struggle.