The First Half Rating 3.75/5
The movie starts off with the voice over of Mahesh Babu, he calls himself a friend of Sanjay[Pawan Kalyan] PAWAN KALYAN is introduced as an alcoholic and a person obsessed with education. Kamalini Mukherjee is introduced as PAWAN KALYAN’s lover, we are showed a brief scene with Prakash Raj, who is Kamalani Mukherjee’s father. In an almost unbelievable and comical fashion, the scene is carried forward into PAWAN KALYAN attending Kamalani Mukherjee’s wedding with another person. 52 weeks later, Ileana and Parvathi Melton enter his life in the form of an introduction fight to establish PAWAN KALYAN’s skills.
Fun and frolic follow for the next few minutes; Ileana wins PAWAN KALYAN over with the help of hilarious Sunil. In the mean while we are introduced to Mukesh Rushi and his trusted ally Tanikela Bharani. A notorious factionist that lives on settlements is Mukesh Rishi. MUKESH RISHI runs all his operations from within the Jail. He is further established in a beautifully choreographed land takeover fight scene.
Comedy works well between PAWAN KALYAN and Ileana, Mukesh Rishi is established in the side track, songs work well and everything seems to be going amazingly well, the anticipation of something big looming between PAWAN KALYAN and MUKESH RISHI builds expectation.
Mukesh Rishi spots Pawan Kalyan for the first time in the movie; he wants to grab him but fails. Pawan Kalyan is totally unaware of all this happening around him. Mukesh Rishi plots an execution but calls it off at the last moment stating, PAWAN KALYAN needs to suffer before this death. From here on it’s a cat and mouse game, or should we just say it’s a cat’s game as Pawan Kalyan is forced to encounter near misses of death. In one such encounter, Ali is grabbed from the group of PAWAN KALYAN’s friends and a fight follows, this is where PAWAN KALYAN reveals in an emotional state that he has had a hard childhood, which included poverty. However this is where Pawan Kalyan is unable to do justice to the dialogues, his histrionics do not suit these kind of emotional dialogues, also the build up to the scene being a very weak one does not help. This in turn leaves us at a very weak interval, which if not for the last five minutes of the first half was an amazing first part of the movie.
Second Half Rating 2.80/5
Second half starts off with PAWAN KALYAN narrating a flashback about his miserable childhood and young life. This includes a brief stint with the naxalites, this is where the story starts falling off one bit at a time. The reason for PAWAN KALYAN joining the naxals is justified, but the reason why he leaves them is totally illogical, what with Mahesh Babu’s voice over telling us that he had been promoted to a higher cadre in the group.
Groups of fighters start mobbing PAWAN KALYAN from nowhere and he just dismisses them, In the meanwhile the love drama takes a few twists, Ileana’s father being Prakash Raj the police officer who changed (assumed) PAWAN KALYAN.
When the Villain of the movie is showed in a massive powerful position, you would assume an excellent scene or two will follow between them. But nothing like that happens in the entirety of the movie, including the climax.
Songs
You and I, My heart is beating and Gallo Telinattundhe are amazingly picturised, the title track, Jennifer Lopez and Chalore Chalore are pitifully picturised with no build up to the songs at all. They just seem they popped out of nowhere.
Pawan Kalyan
Pawan Kalyan is first rate and his comedy worked amazingly well, his fights have been choreographed well and his dance is crisp, but I must say we wanted Pawan Kalyan to dance for the song “Jalsa”rather than walk or beat up the villains.
Trivikram Sreenivas
Trivikram Srenivas is confused, the story made me wonder if this was a love story, a factionist story or a Naxalite story. A bit more clarity would have been better received by the audience. Trivikram has absolutely wonderful songs and an amazingly talented star cast which were at this disposal. Parvathi Melton was wasted. Comedy worked well, including Brahmanandam.
Overall
Overall Jalsa is ok, definitely your money’s worth, with amazing care taken to every detail but don’t think too hard about logic or story. Just take it as it comes. Once you start thinking about the story it’s an absolute no brainer from Trivikram.
