Jatadhara review: A strong concept drives Sonakshi Sinha and Sudheep Babu's mediocre film

Shiva (Sudeep Babu) is a ghosthunter who does not believe in ghosts, asserting that everything is science. Driven by a past loss to prove that ghost don't exists, his weekend thrill, while pursuing a corporate job, is to explore haunted places with his beeping equipment to find "energies"; nevertheless, he finds none. He discovers a haunted place, which he now wants to explore to prove the non-existence of ghosts. All this while, he is often woken up to dreams of floating in mid-air with his bed and every movable thing in his room and visuals of a woman trying to kill her child in its cradle.

Through a series of unfortunate events, he gets to know his parents aren't his biological parents. And boom, the child and the woman he was seeing in his dream were him and his biological mother, respectively. His guardian father tells him the story of how his parents killed themselves to save his life from a glamorous, gold-laden Dhana Pishachini (Sonakshi Sinha), a demon goddess, who possessed them a couple of times to kill him.

He goes back to the house of his biological parents, and uses his beeping machine to find energies, and his parents respond. The ghosthunter who did not believe in ghosts all his life has now found real ghosts of his own parents (irony intended). With the witch now thirsting for his blood and his inner urge to avenge the sacrifices of his parents, he now wants to put an end to her demonic reign.

Final verdict

The potential of a good story seemed to be marred by a lot of factors that pull it backwards. Starting off with the AI-generated scenes to show the backstory of thousands of years ago at the very start of the film is a turn-off. As the film progresses, the background music seems to be exploited and used out of turn. The sound team has experimented with a wide range of music throughout the film, even in places where it is not needed. For a genre like this, in certain places, silence would have been more impactful, but nevertheless, a mix of eerie and pop beats refuses to slow down.

As far as the VFX and special effects are concerned, there is nothing special about them. The VFX look decent in some places but below par in most. At some places, especially when Sudheep Babu performs an intense tandav sequence in the snow, the visible patchwork looks really poor. Even cartoons these days have more refined effects.

Cinematographically, while some shots have been meaningfully shot, there are more loopholes. The transitions between scenes don't seem smooth, cutting off abruptly. The experiments with camera angles seem not to have landed well at all, especially when the camera rotates 360° vertically in non-important scenes. 

Talking of performances, Sudheep Babu does a decent job as a man torn between age-old beliefs and science. Sonakshi Sinha is unconvincing as the witch with the weird laughter, unusual smirks and the chattering teeth, which feels more funny than scary. Shilpa Shirodkar delivers a decent performance too and is convincing. Indira Krishnan feels the most authentic and honest when it comes to her portrayal. Divya Khossla Kumar as Sitara seems to be competing with Alia Bhatt from Bhramastra on who says 'Shiva' the most. Her character seems confused about whether she is smart or just cute. 

The dialogues do pack a punch with some really meaningful and thought-provoking lines about faith, beliefs, and science. However, some cliché dialogues here and there are too dramatically predictable, and make you laugh instead.

Some 'typical' emotional scenes, unfortunately, don't connect, and thus overall fail to strike a chord. The narrative is soiled by a weak execution, as many places leave one confused about what is happening, especially in the climax that had so much potential. The deep, thought-provoking concept that brings forth a dark world that is unseen and unheard of, while blending mystery, faith, science and logic, is the hero of the film. 

Overall, Jatadhara can be a one-time watch for its unique concept and a fresh take on faith viewed with logic.

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