For those uninitiated, Idam Jagath seems agonisingly “inspired” from Dan Gilroy’s Nightcrawler, as was revealed from the trailer of the film released earlier. The movie itself picks up from the premise of the American film, but struggles to fit it into the mould of a typical Telugu action drama. Rich bratty kids, politicians, a drug mafia, corrupt police officers, a romance et al!
Nishith (Sumanth), suffers with something called Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder because of which he is unable to find a job. Nishith, (whose name not-so-subtly means “night”) stumbles upon a job that pays more than he can ask for - a “night reporter”. He understands that in the TRP business, the more drama, the more tragedy he can capture, the more he gets paid. He takes to manipulating crime and accident scenes for the perfect shot. On one such a night he happens to witness a murder which he captures but only gives away the footage of the dead body claiming that he was dead when he found it. How this murder spirals into something more than he bargained for is the rest of the film.
While the first half is the set up for the actual story, you are already bored of Nishith’s smug attitude towards his choices. And of course there is a love interest.
As it would happen, his beloved’s only deal-breaker is anyone working the night-shift. So, Nishith does what any decent person would do.... Just kidding! He lies to her about his job and disease, obviously. The second half spirals down as he tries to find who was behind the murder. And the film thus goes in circles. It looks as though the director thinks he’s being supremely clear about where this was all going, but it never comes through. You don’t get why anyone is doing what they are doing.
Meanwhile, Nishith’s entire morality is based on money. For him money is all that matters and as long as he isn’t the one pulling the trigger, he has no remorse in even using a colleague as a human shield. Towards the end, we are confused whether Nishith is supposed to be a do-gooder while feeding himself or just a sociopath cashing in on everyone’s misery. He delivers a series of monologues using buzzwords like manchi and chedu were probably there to justify his actions.
The movie struggles to convince the audience that the hero is still a hero despite his questionable morals. On the technical front there isn’t much to add. The screenplay is convoluted, the plot itself has holes big enough to fit a reworked script. The lead actors seemed to be straining to be at ease before the camera. The songs of the film are a breath of fresh air although are placed erratically while the BGM couldn’t salvage the poor set of scenes.
Bottom line: Watch Nightcrawler instead.
| Movie: Idam Jagath Cast: Sumanth, Anju Kurian Director: Anil Srikantam Rating: 2/5 |