V N Aditya’s latest film ‘Mugguru’ has a strong stench of films made in the early 90s about young men who dream of becoming rich overnight by making rich girls fall in love with them. Few years ago, another film ‘Sandade Sandadi’ made effective use of this theme; however it managed to weave a hilarious story around this concept. Unfortunately, Mugguru never really rises above its clichés and ends up being a mediocre film which has forgotten that the concept has been done to death on celluloid.

What’s the story? Navdeep, Rahul and Srinivas Avasarala star as Pavan, Maruthi and Anji who are trying to make a quick buck. One day, they plan to kidnap a rich man, JP and extort a large amount of money from his family. However, before their plan succeeds, JP (Ahuthi Prasad) has a heart attack and Pavan rescues him on time. Impressed with his kind nature, JP decides to give jobs to Pavan and his friends in his company based in Malaysia. He even decides to make the three of them his sons-in-law. It turns out that JP has three daughters, played by Shraddha Das, Sanjanna and Soumya. How these three guys impress the three daughters of JP forms the rest of the story.

Mugguru desperately tries to be a ‘fun’ film. Instead of trying to take a cue from stories of the current generation, the film seems to be inspired by films of a bygone era. Little does the director and writer, V N Aditya realize that some stories and style of narration are better left untouched. In the film, when Pavan, Maruthi and Anji land in Kuala Lumpur, they forget that they have got their jobs based on bunch of lies and start having ‘fun’ at the expense of their prospective father-in-law. Ali and ‘Thagubothu’ Ramesh display utter lack of intelligence in the film. Perhaps, they couldn’t help but making fools of themselves in this script to elevate the heroes’ characterization. It’s been ages since someone has made a film where nothing ‘worthwhile’ happens for over two hours. The whole film is filled with clichés which tests our patience.

Navdeep, Rahul and Srinivas do put in some effort in their roles, but when you are part of a story which has an extremely low IQ, there’s hardly anything left to appreciate. The characterizations of Shraddha, Sanjanna and Soumya are so poorly etched that they are left to shake a leg every now and then and ham it up whenever the ‘story’ demands. But hey…if the prospect of watching them in bikinis amuses you, then maybe they did exactly what they were supposed to do in the film. The film’s so called ‘surprise package’, Reema Sen makes a disappointing comeback. She hardly adds value to the story and even the flashback which forms the crucial part of this story fails to evoke any interest. Even Brahmanandam’s presence fails to lift the spirits.

Technical Departments : Koti’s music is alright; however, the background score is mediocre. Cinematography and editing are good. VN Aditya, who wrote the story, screenplay, apart from directing the film banks a lot upon the antics of the characters without paying much attention to the script. Although the three heroes don’t disappoint in terms of their acting, there’s hardly anything in the script to salvage the film.

Bottomline: The humour in ‘Mugguru’ does remind you of films like Golmaal and Dhaamal, but that’s probably unintentional. Films like Mugguru are proof that you can come up with nothing in particular despite having a huge banner and big star cast. So, who’s to blame? How long does it take people to understand that the meaning of ‘fun’ has changed over the years? Please move on. Two big thumbs down to Mugguru. A trip to Malaysia would be a far more pleasant experience than watching this film.