Jatadhara (2025) Movie ft. Sonakshi, Sudheer, and Shilpa

When Jatadhara was announced with Sudheer Babu and Sonakshi Sinha leading a supernatural thriller, it promised something fresh. The film marks Sonakshi’s entry into Telugu cinema while being helmed by directors Venkat Kalyan and Abhishek Jaiswal. Released November 7 across theaters in Hindi and Telugu, it comes from Zee Studios production house.

The movie tries weaving together temple mysteries from Kerala’s famous Anantha Padmanabha Swamy Temple with horror elements. Running over two hours, it features an extended cast including Divya Khossla, Shilpa Shirodkar, and several familiar faces from Telugu cinema. The setup looked promising on paper.

The Plot

Shiva leads a double life – corporate worker by day, ghost hunter by night. He doesn’t really believe in spirits, thinking people’s own fears cause most problems. Things take a turn when a powerful spirit called Dhan Pishachi enters his life, and she’s not happy with him.

The film brings up Pisacha Bandhanam, some old ritual about spirits protecting buried wealth. There’s a connection to temple vaults and hidden gold. But honestly, the trailer showed so much that watching the full movie felt like revisiting known territory rather than discovering something new.

Performances

Sudheer Babu puts in serious work here. You can see his preparation in every frame, especially during the Shiva Tandavam portion where he’s giving everything. I appreciate actors who transform themselves physically for roles, and he clearly did that. But good performance needs good material, which this film struggles to provide.

Sonakshi Sinha works well as the vengeful spirit character. She doesn’t get many lines, yet manages to create an unsettling presence whenever she appears on screen. Her expressions do the heavy lifting, and she understands how to make silence menacing. The rest of the cast gets minimal scope – they show up, do their parts, and disappear without leaving much impression.

Positive Aspects

The basic idea has merit. Exploring real temple legends and incorporating actual rituals into a thriller format could have worked beautifully. Sudheer’s commitment to demanding physical sequences deserves recognition. He clearly trained hard and it shows.

Sonakshi brings genuine intensity whenever her character takes center stage. She makes you believe in the supernatural element, which isn’t easy in films where effects often let actors down. The film at least tries doing something different from regular horror movies where ghosts just scare people randomly.

Problem Areas

The screenplay needed several more drafts before filming began. Scenes don’t flow naturally into each other. The first hour jumps around without building momentum or atmosphere. When the romantic angle suddenly appears, it feels forced and rushed without any foundation.

Direction shows inexperience in multiple sequences. I noticed basic continuity issues and shot composition problems that pulled me out of the story. The second portion starts better with flashback material but then loses steam by dragging scenes too long without adding substance.

Technical Quality

Visual effects become a serious liability. During moments that should create wonder or fear, the cheap-looking CGI actually makes you laugh instead. Someone needed to either improve the effects or redesign sequences to work around budget limitations. Either solution would have been better than what ended up on screen.

Music doesn’t stick with you. The songs feel like obligations rather than story elements, and background score misses opportunities to build tension. Editing leaves too much fat on the bones – tightening the runtime by twenty minutes would have helped pacing considerably.

Critical Response

Review websites didn’t hold back their disappointment. 123Telugu scored it 2.25 stars, noting the concept stays surface-level without depth. GreatAndhra went lower with 1.5, calling attention to filmmaking basics being ignored. Gulte questioned why technicians couldn’t deliver even one solid sequence across the whole runtime.

Deccan Chronicle gave 1.5 stars while pointing out how the film leans on outdated ideas about supernatural practices. But not everyone disliked it – DNA India surprisingly rated it 4 stars, finding value in the mythological approach and spiritual elements. This wide rating gap shows how divided opinions became.

Public Take

Audiences split on this one, though more leaned negative. IMDb currently shows 5.6 rating from about 277 people. Some folks genuinely enjoyed the different storyline and appreciated what they saw as a message about greed destroying people. These viewers found it refreshing compared to standard ghost films.

Most theater-goers left feeling let down though. Common complaints centered on boring execution, weak effects, and trailers spoiling major plot points. Several people mentioned feeling cheated since promotional material basically showed the entire story. Limited marketing reach meant many didn’t even know about the release.

Bottom Line

Jatadhara had ingredients for something special but couldn’t cook them properly. The mythological thriller concept deserved better treatment than what two directors managed here. Despite Sudheer Babu and Sonakshi Sinha trying their best, poor technical work and messy storytelling sink the ship.

If you really love mythology-heavy stories and can ignore shaky effects plus sluggish pacing, maybe give it a chance. For regular movie-goers wanting solid thrills and coherent storytelling, this won’t satisfy. I kept hoping it would find its rhythm, but that moment never arrived across the full runtime.

Rating: 2/5