Goodachari

Goodachari
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Sashi Kiran Tikka
Screenplay by	Sashi Kiran Tikka Adivi Sesh Rahul Pakala Abburi Ravi (dialogues)
Story by	Adivi Sesh
Produced by	Abhishek Nama T. G. Vishwa Prasad Abhishek Agarwal
Starring	Adivi Sesh Sobhita Dhulipala Jagapathi Babu
Cinematography	Shaneil Deo
Edited by	Garry BH
Music by	Sricharan Pakala
Production companies	Abhishek Pictures People Media Factory Vista Dream Merchants
Distributed by	AK Entertainments
Release date	3 August 2018 (2018-08-03) (India)
Running time	147 minutes
Country	India
Language	Telugu
Budget	₹6 crore[1]
Box office	est. ₹23.4–25 crore[2][1]

Goodachari (transl. The Spy) is a 2018 Indian Telugu-language action spy film directed by Sashi Kiran Tikka.^[3] The film stars Adivi Sesh, Sobhita Dhulipala, and Jagapathi Babu with Prakash Raj, Supriya Yarlagadda, Vennela Kishore, Anish Kuruvilla, Rakesh Varre and Madhu Shalini in supporting roles. The film features music composed by Sricharan Pakala, cinematography by Shaneil Deo and editing by Garry BH.

The film was released on 3 August 2018.^[4] Sesh, Tikka and Rahul Pakala won the Best Screenplay at Zee Cine Awards 2018. The film is reported to be loosely based on Matthew Vaughn's The Kingsman.^[5] The film is considered one of the "25 Greatest Telugu Films Of The Decade" by Film Companion.^[6]

Plot[]

Gopi, alias Arjun Kumar (Adivi Sesh), is brought up by his uncle Satya (Prakash Raj) after the death of his father, Raghuveer. Raghuveer was killed during a classified mission as a RAW agent. Arjun dreams of joining the Indian foreign intelligence agency RAW and serve the country but gets no response even after sending 174 applications. In the 175th application, he mentions his father's name and gets recruited by Trinetra Agency, one of the secret weapons of RAW. At first, Satya doesn't accept Gopi's decision for fear of losing him, but Gopi tells about his passion for serving the nation like his father and Satya relents. Later, Trinetra's chief, Damodar (Anish Kuruvilla), briefs his new recruits about Al-Mujahidin, a terrorist outfit based in several countries, and its chief called Rana, whose identity remains unknown despite several attempts.

Meanwhile, Gopi starts dating Dr Sameera Rao (Sobhita Dhulipala), an M.A. psychology graduate from Harvard University, and the girl next door. Sameera introduces her uncle as her father during one of their meetings. Gopi discovers this and confronts her about it, but Sameera confesses that her father died in an accident, and she now considers her uncle as her father. Seeing how he's in a similar situation, Arjun reveals his true identity to her.

Meanwhile, it is revealed that Al-Mujahidin knows all about Trinetra. They are implementing "Mission Gopi". Arjun notices an Al-Mujahidin member Hamza near the Trinetra office and follows him. After some chase and struggle, he obtains a clue '1112' from the Al-Mujahidin agent. The Trinetra team assumes that it is an attack plan on 11 December, but can't find the target of this attack, so they keep a close watch.

During graduation, Acharya (Swaraj Rebbapragada), a senior official and founder of Trinetra, attends as a chief guest of the ceremony. Sameera suggests that Arjun presents a Jameson Irish Whiskey bottle to Damodar instead of going empty-handed. At the graduation, all recruits get their postings: Mohammad Basha (Rakesh Varre) gets selected for primary security detail, including escorting Acharya. Leena Raajan (Madhu Shalini) is assigned to the reconnaissance team in Dhaka through the Indian embassy. Arjun gets selected as a top spy who topped in the training achieved all the strengths without any weakness. He was presented with a Trinetra agency number 116. As an undercover agent, his primary job is to infiltrate, recon, sabotage, and even assassinate, all behind the enemy lines. Should he be discovered, R.A.W would disavow him.

He is assisted by his former trainers Nadia Qureshi (Supriya Yarlagadda), who oversees the operations, and Shaam (Vennela Kishore), her trusted aid and technical lead. After the inauguration and reaching home, Arjun realizes he misinterpreted the clue (the code is actually reverse—it's 12 November, not 11 December), and that fateful day is the graduation day. The target is none other than Acharya himself. Gopi tries to warn Basha, but it's too late as the convoy is under attack already. Basha and Acharya are killed while the assailants flee.

At the same time in the Trinetra office, Damodar sips the Whiskey, which was presented by Gopi, and having a conversation with his friend, former RAW agent, and Gopi's Uncle Satya. Suddenly, Damodar starts choking, and he collapsed down and dies, revealing the whisky to be poisoned. Gopi comes to know in the news that he is framed as the kingpin of the attack, and PMO issues an arrest warrant. Simultaneously, Gopi gets attacked by the Al-Mujahidin members, and Sameera dies in that attack. Gopi manages to defeat and escape from the commandos, and he goes to meet his uncle in Rajahmundry. They both deduce that there is a mole in Trinetra.

Arjun decides to find out this mole and the real identity of Rana. On the basis of clues, he leaves for Vishakapatnam. Meanwhile, Nadia and Shaam are appointed to catch Gopi. In a media primetime watch, a reporter shows that Gopi is in Rajahmundry in their channel. Shaam travels to Rajahmundry to trace Arjun. Meanwhile, through a phone call received by Nadia on Arjun's phone, she learns that he has a personal locker in a private bank. Nadia opens the locker and finds about Gopi's past.

Rana makes a plan to nab Gopi through Khan, one of his Rajahmundry spies. According to Khan's sources, he also cannot find Gopi's hideout, but he saw Gopi in a market and chases him, but Gopi manages to escape from him successfully. Gopi reaches the Visakhapatnam airport to escape, but local police are searching for him in the airport. Gopi recognized a person who claimed to be Sameera's Uncle and confronts him, but the person had consumed cyanide and died. When checking his purse, he finds out the real identity of Sameera Rao (Sameera Sheikh instead of Sameera Rao). She is a psychology graduate at Harvard who belongs to Chittagong, Bangladesh. With the help of Satya, he understands that Sameera is also one of the members of Al-Mujahidin and that he was completely trapped by Al-Mujahidin. But he didn't understand why, only he was trapped by them. He escapes successfully from the local police and reached Chittagong via sea route and meets his colleague Leena Raajan. Leena believes Gopi is innocent and helps him to find the truth. Meanwhile, with a minor clue, Shaam finds out about Satya's hideout and informs Nadia

At the same time, in Chittagong, Leena and Gopi find out about Sameera's psychological clinic. Leena asks everyone about Sameera as her friend, which is noticed by the sleeper cells. They follow her and attack her, but Gopi rescues her, and he infiltrates the headquarters of Al-Mujahideen with Leena's help and finds some DVDs in the hideout. Leena is attacked by Khan and severely injured. Then Gopi rescues her again and kills Khan, and destroys the entire headquarters of Al-Mujahidin. Arjun finds terrorist training videos and propaganda in a secret locker at the camp. In a video shop, he watches all the old CDs which he has found in the hideout. All the CDs mentioned about Al-Mujahidin; the first CD shows about a boy and a girl in the training and how they are brainwashed into becoming terrorists, and in the other CD, it reveals Al-Mujahidin chief Rana's(Jagapati Babu) face. Looking at his face, Gopi gets shocked and calls to his uncle and asks about his father. Satya reveals the secret which he had hidden for 20 years, i.e Rana is none other than Raghuveer, who is Satya's former friend and brother-in-law, ex Trinetra/RAW Agent, and Gopi's father. 20 years ago in Sikkim, Satya got information about a Trinetra agent who is working as a covert to Al-Mujahidin. To find out him, he came along with his team to catch them and notices Raghuveer giving all details of Trinetra agents and their offices. Vijay (Ravi Prakash), Satya's colleague, gets outraged and started firing on them. In the ensuing shootout, Raghuveer and Satya remain. Raghuveer tries to kill wounded Satya, but he was shot from the backside by Vijay before he died. Raghuveer then jumped into the river, and Satya thought he was dead and the information which has leaked by him to the terrorists so he informed to shut down the entire Trinetra agency and didn't said to anyone that Raghuveer is Rana as he feared that Al-Mujahidin members might try to take his nephew. To save his nephew, he came out of RAW and started a secret life with his nephew, changed their identities, and moving to Rajahmundry, and he became his father to the world. To divert Al-Mujahidin, he created fake news that they both died in a car accident. Later Trinetra is completely shut down from that day onwards and was relaunched by the Raw in 2008. After hearing this, Gopi confesses that Raghuveer is alive, then suddenly Rana enters Satya's hideout and instructs Gopi to come to his secret base. Gopi comes back to India and reaches Rana's base. Rana shows affection for Gopi and says that he acted as an Indian spy to spy on RAW. He felt dejected after hearing his son's death, but he comes to know that his son is alive through the RAW application form. Then Rana announces that he has his members in Trinetra too, and he decided to kill all the people who are responsible for hiding his son and decided to bring his son back permanently.

He reveals that everything was set up by him until now. In the beginning, he uses Sameera to act as Gopi's girlfriend to get information on Gopi and Satya. But she changed her mind and started liking Gopi. According to his plan, he tried to kill Satya, Damodar, and Achari at the same time. However, Sameera managed to resist Satya for a visit, and she didn't inject anaesthesia to Gopi or else he can kidnap Gopi and kill all of them at one shot, but it couldn't have possible. So Rana killed her and shifted to plan B. According to that, Gopi wants to search for his father by himself and played all the tricks to find for himself. Then Rana puts Gun on Satya and orders Gopi to come with him. Gopi reveals that Trinetra is watching the whole episode and the soldiers arrive to attack the Al-Mujahidin forces. After the attack, Rana escapes with Satya, followed by Gopi. After a rough chase, wounded Rana again puts his gun on Satya to force Gopi to come with him. Then Gopi remembers Damodar's words, "To get strong without any weakness you have to cross all your weaknesses, you said your father is your strength but I consider your father is your weakness; You have to cross your father". Gopi shoots his father to death.

After a week later, Gopi says that Basha confessed his conversation with Gopi to Nadia before his death. Then she tracked Gopi's phone, and she had found Satya's number. Satya warns Nadia about the mole in Trinetra, so Nadia had helped Gopi through Leena secretly. Finally, Gopi confesses that he found the mole in Trinetra and the culprit is going to die in a few minutes. Gopi reveals that he is none other than Shaam. He observed in the first CD (with the kids who are brainwashed) the boy who is getting trained with guns in the terrorist camp the trainer calls him Shaam. Shaam raises his gun to shoot Gopi to his death, but Gopi reminds him that Trinetra is always watching when the Trinetra team shoots Shaam.

In Mount Alps, Gopi decided to leave Trinetra, but Nadia reminds Gopi of Acharya's words about responsibilities towards the nation and makes him confident. Nadia handovers a letter to Gopi, which she had found in Gopi's bank locker written by Sameera. In the letter, Sameera apologises about not disclosing her identity and shares her feelings with him. The film ends with Agent Gopi 116 reporting to Nadia and continuing his mission in Russia as a Goodachari(spy), hinting towards a sequel.

Cast[]

• Adivi Sesh as M. Gopi / M. Arjun Kumar
• Sobhita Dhulipala as Sameera Rao / Sameera Sheikh
• Jagapathi Babu as Raghuveer / Rana
• Prakash Raj as Satya
• Supriya Yarlagadda as Nadiya Qureshi
• Vennela Kishore as Shaam
• Anish Kuruvilla as Damodar
• Rakesh Varre as Mohammed Basha
• Madhu Shalini as Leena Rajan
• Ravi Prakash as Vijay
• Swaraj Rebbapragada as Acharya
• Preeti Singh as Uma Vishwanath
• Irfan Sia as Ravi Varma
• Ravi Myskar as Kishore Krishnamurthy
• Mayank Parakh as Abdul Qadir

Production[]

In 2017, debutant director Sashi Kiran Tikka announced that he would be making a film with actor Adivi Sesh in the lead role with Sricharan Pakala as the music composer.^[7] The first-look poster of the film was released on 13 January 2018 coinciding with Sankranthi festival.^[8]

Soundtrack[]

The soundtrack of Goodachari consists of seven songs, all of which were composed by Sricharan Pakala.^[9]

Critical reception[]

Goodachari received rave reviews from critics and was praised for its unique concept, which was foreign to Telugu cinema. It was criticized by some who drew comparisons to James Bond and said that this film was ripped off of that franchise. However, the two plots proved to be different, and in this way, Goodachari was able to avoid controversies.

The Times of India gave it four stars and wrote, "Goodachari proves what Tollywood can do, if only it makes different choices and dreams big. Filled with edge-of-the-seat moments and riveting twists, this one is the perfect popcorn entertainer."^[10] GreatAndhra gave it a rating of 3/5 and wrote, "'Goodachari' is a well-made spy thriller with right mix of suspense, action, and emotion."^[11] The Hindustan Times gave it 3/5 stars and wrote, "However, away from these obvious set-ups and spoon-fed moments, there is magic in this film."^[12] The Hindu wrote, "This coming-of-age story of a spy is a winner," and praised it for its racy screenplay.^[13]

Idlebrain.com's Jeevi gave it 3.25 stars and wrote, "Making a spy film in Telugu and making sure that it doesn't look pretentious is an achievement. With movie lovers having access to digital platforms and with all spy films (James Bond series, Kingsman, Mission Impossible, etc in general and Paramanu, Raazi, etc in particular) being available at no cost, it takes a lot of guts and ability for makers to select spy genre for a regional film. There are budget constraints too. The team has delivered a genuine spy action film which is engaging and which can stand on its own without drawing any comparisons with any other Hollywood films. Goodachari is different, yet commercial. You may watch it!"^[14] The News Minute praised it for its originality and said that it didn't run out of ideas. They wrote, "Goodachari is a movie that gives its audience its money's worth, and shows how we have not used up all possible roles where a veteran like Prakash Raj can add value!"^[15]

123telugu gave it 3.5 stars and said, "If Adivi Sesh's Kshanam gave a new edge to the thriller genre, Goodachari is a notch higher and showcases that there are makers in Tollywood who can dream big and make films on an international level. Goodachari is filled with edge of the seat moments and riveting thrills which will keep you entertained. As the film is made on a compact budget, it will make merry at the box office because of its universal appeal. If you ignore the slightly slow second half, you can happily enjoy this popcorn thriller which is filled with ample twists and turns."^[16] Indiaglitz gave it 3.25 stars, saying that "'Goodachari' has the right mix: underplayed heroism, saleable emotions, thrilling twists, technical finesse, clap-worthy dialogue. Besides, it has got some of the coolest performances."^[17]

Box office[]

The film grossed ₹25 crore in its first weekend.^[18]

Sequel[]

In December 2018, scriptwriter and actor Adivi Sesh confirmed that there would be a sequel to the film, titled Goodachari 2. It would be directed by Rahul Pakala.^[19]

References[]

External links[]

• Goodachari at IMDb