Jaggu Dada (Kannada)
Director: Raghavendra Hegde
Cast: Darshan Thoogudeepa, Deeksha Seth, Ravishankar, Sharath Lohitashwa, Anant Nag, Srujan Lokesh, Achyuth Kumar, Sadhu Kokila, Loki
Hyper-masculine aggression? Check. Asinine comedy? Check. Ample misogyny? Double Check. In the name of a ‘wholesome entertainer’, Raghavendra Hegde’s Jaggu Dada is actually a torturer’s paradise.
You have to not just tolerate endless and noisy action sequences that are mere excuses to show off Darshan’s tiger tattoo, but also sit through gags that do not evoke laughter. Just when you think it cannot get worse, the filmmaker introduces a ‘comedy’ sequence where a woman’s sari falls, her cleavage is revealed and she is taken inside the bathroom to be taught a lesson for being ‘naughty’.
There is a vague script somewhere. Shankar Dada (Ravishankar), an erstwhile underworld kingpin, is on his death bed and is full of regret. He rues the fact that his son, Veeru Dada (Sharath Lohitashwa), and grandson Jaggu Dada (Darshan) too have entered the underworld. In order to secure his grandson’s future at least, he makes him promise that he will give up his rowdy ways.
How does he plan to get him to do that? He makes Jaggu promise that he will find a cultured girl and marry her. No one in Bengaluru is willing to give their daughter to a don.
So Jaggu goes to Mumbai disguised as Jaidev, a businessman from Dubai. He takes the help of Gowri (Deeksha Seth), a matchmaker, to find a wife. He ends up falling in love with her.
Up until this point, there is at least a semblance of a linear plot, even though it is as ludicrous as a hero literally shopping for a cultured bride. But soon, the filmmaker decides to force fit as many characters as he can. We have a barrage of sub-plots accommodating Anant Nag, Achyuth Kumar, Loki etc.
If only, he had gone shopping for a script instead.
The filmmaker seems confused about whether to make a comedy or an action-drama. Who, according to the filmmaker, is a ‘cultured’ woman? He shows us his version of ‘uncultured’ women to tell us the difference. Champa (Pranitha Subhash) is one example. She is introduced to us as ‘a girl who has danced in all the bars of Bengaluru’. The second example is that of ‘Opener Kamala’ who comes to seduce Jaggu by letting her saree fall in front of him.
The cultured sample, approved by the ghost of Shankar Dada, is Gowri therefore, one who is pure, perfect, knows how to respect elders and take care of her family (and one who dresses only in salwar kameez).
The film aspires to the leave-your-brains-at-home-entertainer kind but one only wishes that the filmmakers hadn’t done that too. Yet again, here’s a film that tries to pass off vulgar and demeaning sequences replete with misogyny as comedy.
The filmmaker is obsessed with the star persona of Darshan.
He could be telling us any other story and the film will still not look, sound and feel different.
It is just three hours of noise and an excuse for Darshan to be on screen.
