Film: Siddham
Cast: Jagapathi Babu, Sindhu Menon, Kota Srinivas Rao, Mukul Dev, Subbaraju, Narsing Yadav, Malladi Raghava and others
Music: Amar Mohale
Cinematography: Bharani K Dharan
Editing: Bhanodaya
Production designer: Suman Varma
Produced by: Kiran Kumar Koneru
Screenplay and direction: JD Chakravarthy
Release date: Feb 12, 2009
What’s is it about?
Dayanand (Jagapathi Babu) is an encounter specialist and he leads happy married life with his wife (Sindhu Menon). He has creditable team. Daya believes the only way to wipe out crime is kill the criminals. He meets a lot of obstacles in his path and the situation becomes further complicated with the appointment of a new commissioner with the existing commissioner (Kota) retiring. How he takes revenge on enemies becomes rest of the story.
Analysis
After ‘free’making The Departed/Infernal Affairs for Homam, director J D Chekravarthy now remakes his mentor Ram Gopal Varma produced Ab Tak Chappan as Siddham. Jagapathi Babu plays the role that was done to perfectly by the powerhouse actor Nana Patekar here. And just imagine Jagapathi Babu in the role of Nana Patekar and you would know how would this film be. Although JD has tried hard to follow on the same lines of the original, the Telugu version is so dry. Even dialogues are copy of the same movie including the film's tagline 'Doctors cure, engineers build, I kill’ (in Telugu 'Doctarlu Vaidyam Chestaru, Engineerlu Nirmistar, Nenu Champutanu’).
Director J D is not Shimit Amin nor Jagapathi is Nana Patekar, so the remake version is not that appealing as the original. In the first place, the concept of ‘encounter cop’ in Andhra Pradesh sounds so silly. Mumbai does have the real cops such as but forcibly putting them in the milieu of our society is odd.
Performances
Jagapathi Babu
has body like a cop and his looks are good but his performance is no match to Nana.
Sindhu Menon is cute and apt for the role for wife. Subbaraju, Mukul Dev, Kota and others have done neat job. Editing and cinematography is okay.
J D uses same shot compositions as the original director Shimit had done in Ab Tak Chappan. Re-recording by Amar Mohale is good.
Bottom-line!
Those who have seen the original Ab Tak Chappan would surely not like it. Those who haven’t might think it is just an okay. Homam was ‘freemake’, now it is remake!
Rating: 2.75/5
Reviewed by Ashok Tati
