A film on cops sans a gripping story

JD Chakravarthy, who entered the films as a small time villain, later turned a hero and won the hearts of Telugu audiences. With no notable hits to his credit, he was off the screen for some time and joined as an associate to his mentor and got training in direction department. He had also directed a couple of films but none of them ran well. However, his recent film 'Homam' remained an average grosser and avoided flop talk. Inspired by the Bollywood film 'Ab Tak Chappan' and Jagapatibabu's inclination to play a super cop, the director chose to bring out another police story on the screen. However, it is claimed that Ramgopal Varma had penned a story with the real life incidents that occurred in the life of two senior IAS officers Dayanayak and Sitaramanjaneyulu and the same was moulded on the celluloid.

Daya (Jagapatibabu) is a sincere police officer who works in Task Force. He earns name and fame as an encounter specialist and gets good media coverage. His job is to eliminate the goons and local leaders of mafia to safeguard the society. However, he always prays to God that no one should get killed by him everyday which never happens. He was of the opinion that killing is not his passion, but duty like doctors who perform surgeries and engineers who build constructions. He has a lovable family which includes his wife Divya (Sindhu Menon) and daughter Harini (Baby Sivani). After the retirement of the DGP who always encouraged him in his job, another DGP takes charge, who had links with one of the mafia groups. At this juncture, Daya gets information that a notorious sharp shooter Ashok (Subbaraju) entered the city to meet his mother. So, Daya and his team goes to his house to nab him and in the shoot out Ashok's mother gets killed. Daya somehow catches Ashok and despite the DGP's orders not to kill him, Daya mercilessly kills him but make everyone believe that he escaped from police custody. Later, Divya gets killed by another mafia gang, but that mafia gang leaders calls up saying that she was killed by Ashok. Daya also learns that a historysheeter turned corporator is the henchman of one mafia gang. When Daya tries to warn the corporator, the DGP admonishes him. Unable to digest the fact that the DGP had become a pawn in the hands of mafia, Daya resigns to his job. Later Daya kills the corporator and also the DGP in different incidents. In order to take revenge, Daya pretends to take the help of the mafia don in getting a shelter and goes to Dubai with latter's help and kills him there. On the recommendation of the retired DGP, the Home Minsiter gives back his job and Daya continues his mission of elimination of anti-social elements.

PERFORMANCE:

Jagapatibabu who says that it was one of his dream roles, did complete justice to the role. He maintained a separate hairstyle exclusively for the film. He maintained good variation in his histrionics while playing in action scenes and in love, romantic and sentiment scenes. His latest experience in 'Homam' helped him a lot in playing the role with good ease. Sindhu Menon, who had played the girl to the next door kind of roles and glamour roles till recently played the housewife with a six-year-old kid in this film. Though she appears only in a few scenes, she gave a nice performance. She appeared in traditional saree all through the film and fitted well in her role. All the other artistes, who played the policemen are okay in their roles, while the villain failed to impress the audiences.

TECHNICAL:

The choreography of action scenes are stylish and reflected the present day crime in the outside world. Though it was said that Ramgopal Varma penned the story, there is absolutely no story at all, and the director was able to ensure the movement of the story with his screenplay abilities. There are no songs in this film. Camera work by Bharani K Dharan is okay and he was able to capture the mood of the hero with different emotions excellently. However, several scenes were beyond logic. Music by Amar Mohili is good as the re-recording was excellent and at times the music elevated several scenes. Though the film was almost based on the screenplay abilities, the logic went missing for a good amount of the film.

ANALYSIS:

The film could be welcomed by the front benches as it had the action in the backdrop. It appeared that the film was made only to fulfil the urge of the hero to play super cop. The director tried his best in making use of some scenes of 'Ab Tak Chappan', a Bollywood film released in 2004. Though not very boring, the absence of a gripping story, very few comedy scenes, the film has almost no entertaining values to entertain the audiences. Jagapatibabu who had a fascination to play a super cop's role, by totting the the gun and kills the criminals without any mercy. After playing an undercover cop who mingled with the mafia gang and eliminates them one after the other in 'Homam', he played a straight cop and an encounter specialist in 'Siddham'.

Cast: Jagapatibabu, Sindhu Menon, Mukul Dev, Radha Ravi, Subbaraju, Sivaprasad, Narsing Yadav, Dr Bharat Reddy, Sandra, Aparna, Baby Sivani and others

Credits: Story – Ramgopal Varma, Camera – Bharani K Dharan, Music – Amar Mohili, Editing – Bhanodaya, Art is by Satya, Producer – Kirankumar Koneru, Screenplay and direction – JD Chakravarthy.

Banner: Shreya Productions

Released on: February 12, 2009