Mass Jathara Review

Since 2020, Raviteja has starred in nine films in the role before Mass Jathara, and out of the nine films, only two (i.e., Krack and Dhamaka) were successful. To break the flop streak, he teamed up with the usually reliable production house, Sithara Entertainments. Bhanu Bogavarapu, who provided the story for the super successful film, Samajavaragamana, was roped in to direct the movie. After the super successful, Dhamaka, Sreeleela and the music director, Bheems Ceciroleo, together teamed up with Raviteja. When the film was announced, the combination looked solid and raised expectations.

After postponing the release date multiple times for various reasons, the makers of the film finally released it in theatres today. Did Raviteja finally manage to score a hit after delivering four back-to-back flop films? Did the combination of Raviteja, Sreeleela and Bheems Ceciroleo, work out yet again after, Dhamaka? Was the debutant director, Bhanu Bogavarapu, able to deliver an entertaining mass commercial film? After being in the news for all the wrong reasons in August and September, did the producer, Naga Vamsi, bounce back with a hit film? Let’s figure it out with a detailed analysis.

What is it about?

Lakshman Bheri(Ravi Teja), an honest and sincere railway police officer from Telangana, gets a transfer to Adavi Varam, an agency area in Srikakulam district. Right after stepping into the village, he observes multiple wrongdoings. He reports the wrongdoings to the respective police and forest department heads in the village but they ridicule him and ask him to mind his own business.

Shivudu(Naveen Chandra), a druglord in the town, make the people in the village cultivate marijuana, he then buys it from the people and smuggles it from Adavi Varam to Kolkata. How did Lakshman Bheri destroy the business of Shivudu? Why did Sreeleela and her father become marijuana peddlers? Why exactly was Lakaham Bheri transferred to Adavi Varam? Forms the rest of the story.

Performances:

We can see Raviteja’s usual energy at many places but it is high time for him to realise that he is not the Raviteja of ‘Idiot’, ‘Bhadra’ and ‘Venky’ anymore. His mannerisms used to be good in the aforementioned movies and multiple other movies but not anymore. Especially, the romantic track between him and Sreeleela looked very odd. Mass Jathara has many notable actors and it is one of those rare films where almost all actors delivered below-par and over-the-top performances.

Rajendra Prasad’s character was poorly written. Particularly, his flirting sequences with multiple women, were of very poor taste. Naveen Chandra’s role has a very weak characterisation. All he did throughout the film was to scream and scream and scream some more. Sreeleela’s performance is subpar to say the least and so is Naresh’s and all other actors’ performance.

Technicalities:

The only positive point about the film is the superb work by the cinematographer, Vidhu Ayyanna. His intent to provide a visually rich experience to the audience was to be seen in almost every scene. Unfortunately, his good work was undone by all other technical departments, including the director.

One of the major drawbacks of the film was Bheems Ceciroleo’s music. It was surprising to see such substandard work from him. All the songs and their placements worked against the film. And, the background score was loud and painful to say the least. Even a simple finger flick sounded unbearable. There’s nothing much the editor, Navin Nooli, can do with a badly directed film.

Production values by Sithara Entertainments, Fortune Four Cinemas and Srikara Studios, were rich. But sadly, everything that could go wrong has gone wrong at the writing table itself for the film. No amount of rich production values can save a film that went wrong even before the start of production. Let’s discuss more about the director and writer’s work in the analysis section.

Positives:

1.⁠ ⁠Cinematography
2.⁠ ⁠A Well-Choreographed Action Sequence

Negatives:

1.⁠ ⁠Substandard Direction
2.⁠ ⁠Loud Music
3.⁠ ⁠Outdated Writing
4.⁠ ⁠Weak Villain Characterisation
5.⁠ ⁠Below By Performance

Analysis:

On 26th January 2025, the makers of the film released a sixty-second short glimpse video. Almost every visual in that video was a reference to Raviteja’s trademark mannerisms from his earlier films and the only dialogue from the glimpse video was a famous one-liner by Raviteja from the movie ‘Idiot’. Just by looking at the short glimpse video and the ‘Manadhe Idantha’ tag line for the title ‘Mass Jathara’, we can understand that the director of the film has no intention to try anything new and all he wanted to do is to use Raviteja’s energy and come up with a commercial entertainer.

There’s nothing wrong with making a routine commercial entertainer. The audience will always watch a well-packaged commercial film without complaints. However, when the packaging is not done right, these commercial entertainer films are tedious to sit through. Sadly, for Mass Jathara, the packaging went terribly wrong.

The debutant director, Bhanu Bogavarapu, seems to have blindly believed that Raviteja’s last unanimous blockbuster, Krack, worked out because of the slick visuals. Krack worked out because of the right doses of action, comedy, emotion, very good hero characterisation and an equally good antagonist characterisation. The cinematography just enhanced the overall output of ‘Krack’ but it is not the only factor for its success. But in Mass Jathara, the director failed to come up with a gripping screenplay and also failed to come up with a strong characterisation for the protagonist role. At no point does the protagonist pose a serious challenge to the hero. Right from the start to the end, there was not even a single emotional sequence that worked.

There were only two emotional sequences(i.e. one is Sreeleela’s family’s backstory and the pre-climax sequence on Rajendra Prasad) and both the sequences were written and executed poorly. The justifications given during both sequences were laughable and silly. Almost every sequence in the film clearly shows the director’s inability to come up with fresh ideas.

We get to see at least a dozen earlier Raviteja’s film references and mannerisms throughout the film. Why do audiences have to visit a theatre to watch a film that looks like a mashup of the hero’s earlier films? And, the dialogues written by Nandu Savirigana, throughout the film were substandard. It appeared as if the dialogue writer inspired by Telugu film fandom wars on X(Twitter) and wrote the dialogues for the film.

Again, why do audiences have to pay and watch a movie in a theatre which has dialogues that are inspired by the X(Twitter) pop culture? It is shocking to see a young director and writer, coming up with such poor ideas. And, on top of the poor writing and direction, the film suffered from an extremely loud background score. In fact, ‘loud’ is an understatement to describe the background score of the film. You should consider yourself extremely lucky if you come out of the theatre without getting a headache because of the background score.

Overall, Mass Jathara is a below-par film that failed miserably in almost all departments, except the cinematography. It is not a film one would expect from a young director. It is shocking to see a debudant director coming up with a film that suffers from, lack of fresh ideas and imagination. The wait for a successful film for Raviteja continues.

Bottomline – ‘Misfired’ Jathara

Rating – 2/5

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