Decoding Directors: Puri Jagannadh – Style and Trademarks

✅ Fact Checked

Puri Jagannadh started his career as an Assistant Director to Ram Gopal Varma. His directorial debut, Badri, starring Pawan Kalyan in the lead role was a blockbuster. At present, he is among the top Telugu directors, popular for movies such as Badri, Idiot, Pokiri, etc.

Puri Jagannadh style and trademarks

Puri Jagannadh Trademarks

Styling

Puri Jagannadh is popular for the styling of actors, hero characterization, extremely casual yet intense dialogues, and routine storylines. The hero elevation, romance, and comedy are his trademarks.

He takes extreme care in styling actors and it gives a complete makeover to popular actors. His movies Super, Pokiri and Desamuduru presented actors Nagarjuna, Mahesh Babu, and Allu Arjun in a completely new look. Many people believe that Puri Jagannadh popularized the concept of first look with his styling and makeover. Even though the styling looks refreshing, he doesn’t show much diversity in costumes except for the songs. So, the lead actors look similar throughout the movie without any random changes.

Hero Characterization

The hero characterization is his trademark to the extent that if any similarities are found in other movies, the critics label it Puri style characterization. The lead actors in almost all his movies are arrogant, careless, and rebellious. He revolutionized the way heroes are seen on screen. Sometimes the characters tend to be too extreme that they look like villains. Several Directors have been copying him since his debut, but none of them could reach the levels of intensity in his films. He is still considered one of the best Telugu directors in presenting star heroes in movies.

Dialogues

The dialogues are an asset to his films. The Quentin Tarantino style of short yet intense dialogues elevates his movies to the next level. The mixture of philosophy, sarcasm, and emotions gives his dialogues a tone that’s unique to him. The phrase ‘Puri mark dialogues’ is used by critics to review similar dialogues by other writers. No wonder most debut writers copy his style in writing screenplay and dialogues.

Romance

The romance in his movies is mostly mere stalking. The review writers and audience criticized him several times for the portrayal of women in his movies. His protagonists generally fall in love at first sight, who eventually pursue heroine through stalking. He narrated almost all his stories from the hero’s point of view, so we don’t get to see the perspective of heroines. Nevertheless, this has become a trend and many other writers followed this structure for their movies.

Comedy

Puri Jagannadh generally uses a separate track for comedy in his movies. The audience criticized it several times. He tried to write comedy as a part of the story in movies like Heart attack, Loafer, and Paisa Vasool, but it didn’t work. The actor Ali plays a significant role in almost all his movies. He used to specially design roles for Ali, and they both are good friends.

Major flaws in Puri Jagannadh’s Direction

Monotony

The hero characterization in all his movies is monotonous. It worked out very well in his early career but has turned out to be the biggest threat to his film career. It appears like he couldn’t get out of his regular characterization to try something different. This also led to his downfall primarily in A centers and overseas.

Apart from that, his recent stories lack substance and he writes only to glorify and elevate heroism. They look good as multiple scenes, but they don’t make any sense as a story. Nowadays, he ridicules villains to elevate heroes. The villains however powerful they may be, fear the hero. For example, the villain in Paisa Vasool is a mafia don who kills tens of agents. But is scared of the hero after knowing that he is an agent. The fights too are an exaggeration with unrealistic stunts that are opposite of his early movies like Badri, Idiot, Amma Nanna O Tamil Ammayi, etc.

Philosophy

The philosophy based on his personal beliefs gets a place in most of his movies. He essays the philosophy regardless of the characterization of the hero and the scene. The audience initially encouraged it but this became monotonous over the years. He showcased his jealousy for several Hollywood films through dialogues in some movies. He made fun of the most successful Hollywood movies like Jaws, Titanic, etc in his movies.

Illogical scenes

His movies have no place for logic. Several scenes like street thugs walking into the Govt offices or the house of politicians and shooting at them are pretty common in his movies. This is because he never finds these characters important and doesn’t write backstories for them. Almost all these characters are insignificant in his movies, but that looks completely illogical in the story.

Carelessness

He never focussed on his career as a Director of Telugu movies. After his debut with a star hero Pawan Kalyan and that too after a blockbuster, he made his second movie with Jagapathi Babu in the lead role with a nonsensical movie. This wouldn’t be a big deal if the script demands an actor like Jagapathi Babu, but Puri Jagannadh is completely careless like the characters in his movies. As if this is not enough, he made his Third movie in Kannada, then the Fourth movie in Telugu with Ravi Teja, and again the next movie in Kannada. Then he had a successful career in Telugu but had a disaster in the name of Andhrawala. At such a time, he made his Bollywood debut with a remake of Badri.

After Pokiri, he had a lean phase in his career for several years. During this time, he Directed a Bollywood movie with Amitabh Bachhan in the lead role, Buddah Hoga Tera Baap, which was just a forgettable film and didn’t help his career in Bollywood. Then he had a string of failures that restricted him to being a medium-range Director. His recent Telugu movie Mehbooba starring his son, Akash Puri, is no better than his previous movies. It seems like Puri Jagannadh has lost his charm over the years.

Conclusion

Puri Jagannadh needs a strong comeback to prove himself. With a string of nonsensical films in a row, he has lost his market and became a struggling Director. He should stop making 2-3 films a year and seriously work on a single project that can bring him back to his position. It is even better if considers Directing the stories of other writers which can provide a much-needed change in his movies.

Photo of author
Author
Pavan Teja
Pavan Teja is a content writer with experience in various topics such as films, politics, health, fitness, beauty, religion, science & technology, make money online, english to telugu translation, etc. He previously worked as Telugu film analyst and is currently working as an assistant director.

Leave a Comment