Balu (Manchu Manoj) is a youngster who aspires to be a great singer. He leaves his village after challenging a rich landlord who insults him and his parents.
Captain Rao (Mohan Babu) who also lives in the same colony hates Balu and believes that he reflects the modern, confused young generation. Captain Rao’s friend’s daughter, Sravya (Taapsi) comes from the U.S. to make a documentary on Telugu culture and stays with him.
Balu meets Sravya and falls for her. Captain Rao hires Balu as Sravya’s guide for her documentary. Sravya starts working on the project and before completing a sizeable amount of shooting, the inevitable happens – Balu and Sravya fall in love.
Just as it happens in any other love story, Captain Rao objects to their love and threatens to ruin Balu’s music career. How Balu manages to win his love and also emerge as a successful singer forms the rest of story.
Manchu Manoj offers a decent performance as an aspiring singer and a modern day lover. He needs to do different roles to convince the critics of his acting prowess. Taapsi is cute but then she doesn’t have the Telugu looks to fit the role. She is rescued by the rich costumes in some of the songs.
Mohan Babu as Captain Rao who is against the attitude of modern youth, stands out in the movie. The rest of the performances - by Suman, Ali, Brahmanandam, Dharmavarapu, Tanikella Bharani and Sudha - are regular.
Logic doesn’t have a place in this movie. The short skirts of Sravya in the entry scene when she meets Balu automatically get converted into full length tracks when she reaches home and meets Captain Rao.
Balu promises Captain Rao that he would forget Sravya before the interval but takes it easy later, leaving us wondering why the promise scene happened in the first place.
Becoming a successful singer is not something that each of us can do and the audience would appreciate it if the directors care to show the effort that goes into it. Instead, we find Balu being portrayed as the ultra cool chap who bashes the goons, reaches the auditions and delivers a prize-winning performance.
The best thing about the movie is the music. M.M Keeravani offers good traditional music which goes with the idea of Sravya working on the project to highlight Telugu culture. The songs Laali Paadutunnadi, Yem Sakkagunnavro, Entha Entha are the pick of the lot. Most of the songs are shot in rich, artistic visual backgrounds that reflect Telugu culture. Of course, you have the typical Raghavendra effects where the leading lady is surrounded by fruits and flowers. In fact, he takes it a step further this time with the lead pair shaking a leg in a song inside a giant-sized coconut.
On the whole, director Raghavendra Rao’s Jhummandi Naadam disappoints. There have been many love stories in the past of the same kind and the movie has nothing new to offer. The songs are good but you can perhaps watch them on television instead of going all the way to the movie hall.
Critic: Raghu Chaitanya
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