Telugu Blockbuster DJ Dangerously Mixes Religion & Crime,Duvadda Jagganadham: Movie Review

Duvadda Jagganadham

Starring: Allu Arjun, Pooja Hegde

Directed by: Harish Shankar

Rating: **(2 Stars)

Allu Arjun is the Salman Khan of Telugu cinema, albeit a slightly less arrogant-looking and more middlclass Salman. His new film which has out-succeeded the Salman starrer Tubelight in Andhra Pradesh is a curious hotchpotch of cuisine and crime. In what appears to be  a tailormade role Arjun plays twin personalities in  one role. In one avatar he is a rapid-talking dhoti-clad cook and caterer serving food and advice  to revellers and mourners alike with the dexterity of multi-tasking Robin Hood.

 But hang on.Duvudda Jagnaddham has a secret life.A call every now and then from a fatigued cop(Murli Sharma)transforms  Duvudda into a bloodthirsty suburban vigilante who steps in to snuff out crimelordsand their goons when the law fails.

If  you find the thought of  a cook moonlighting as a lawbreaking crime buster to be alarming wait till you see how the film mixes and merges religion with crime. In fact violence is seen as a parallel religion by the director , as huge dollops of saffron and red are hurled on the screen every time Duvvadda Jagnaddham turns into DJ to kill a baddie with a relish that he employs when bending over the aromatic pot.

To his credit Allu Arjun pulls off the remarkably mild-and-wild character transformations with a credible cuteness. He is at once ferocious and feisty. He kills with the same gusto that he invests to making and serving food.

Arjun  uses a difference voice quality for the two roles. Rven his dialogues are different in each character. Yes, this actor will entertain and engage. But he will also alarm and disturb you with the casual insouciance he applies to slipping from feud to food and from broth to bloodbath,from gun shots to conch shells, imbuing the hero’s heroics with a startling moral ambivalence that doesn’t sit comfortably on the film.

Yes, there is a leading lady too. Pooja Hedge, last seen struggling to keep her head above water with Hrithik Roshan in Mohenjo Daro is here  introduced to the sound of Katrina Kaif’s Chikni Chameli.And the hero is introduced as a child  to the sound of a gun blowing off heads. Tragically it’s the child-hero doing the  blowing off.  Wonder what the censor board was doing.

This brings me  to the film’s other dangerous cultural bias.All the  goons in the film converse in Hindi while the hero speaks Telugu to all the ‘pure’ Brahminical local from his city.And in one sequence when the cop confronts the child hero with the blazing gun the lawmaker wants to know if he is from Bihar or Chattisgarh.

Oh, so now we get it. It’s the scummy migrants who cause crime in big cities.

So we know whom the makers of this movie on meals and mayhem have to thank.