A poor 3ller

For some inexplicable reason a guy is chosen for a special trip down shit street. Call it fate, curse, ill luck or anything you can decipher from your Thesaurus, it stalks him for life and sucks the life out of him. You empathise with him because that is just what you think you are going through as you watch the protagonist in ‘Jagannatakam’. You begin to search for a pattern. Fatalism is also a pattern. Are we sitting ducks to the flight of fate or has God just played dice? Is about being a failure resigned to circumstances or is it just a persecution complex? Life, unlike a film or the written media of fiction does not offer you the wherewithal to fight the villains and gain your moment under the sky.

Two –nay three stories are out to be told there. The first is about how life decides to give special treatment to Prithvi (Pradeep Nandan). He is decidedly fate’s step son. All that he dreams of is being a film actor (you know that is not the easiest of professional plans to make!). Dad and sis dote on him but the guy has just fallen in love with Bhanu (Khenisha Chandran), a very ordinary looking gal on the way for an interview for a job. All fine you would think. The story of a guy who has no hope and is about to keep losing everything in life but his attitude is waiting to be told.

The next story is, however, that Prithvi and Bhanu do not have a happening love story – not many songs at the Alps or melody for the music director to throw at you with the abetment of the choreographer. Bhanu is now engaged to Dr Ajay (Sridhar); so the next story that is in the womb of telling is the love triangle between the suave suitor, the hapless gal and the rough looser.Now Prithvi, Bhanu and Ajay go on a drive for just no reason, as anything else with the movie, and land up at a hotel which becomes the venue for a whodunit with an army of villains, none visible but all available. You also have some ghosts like figures suggesting the supernatural presence (and the absence of the sensible).

Also is half a tale of a guy on the roads who is some kind of Jean Valjean gone wrong. So you have an Erich Seagal meet Hitchcock with Victor Hugo scenario. The mess is complete and perfect. You do not even know who is who and why anyone is doing anything that is called upon to. Beyond a point you really do not care. This happens very early with the film. None of the performances are inspiring and special mention in this context must be made of Khenisha Chandran. The audience seems to have a good reading of the pulse of films and what they have to offer and have a resolute avoidance to this indulgence. Those who dare, pay.

Movie Name : Jagannatakam

Cast : Pradeep Nandan, Sridhar and Khenisha Chandran

Direction : Pradeep Nandan

Genre : Thriller

Likes : What it could have been

Dislikes : What it is

L Ravichander