20 years of Pokiri: The film that asked a different question about Mahesh Babu | Telugu News
In 2006, Telugu cinema had a certain idea of what Mahesh Babu was. He was the Prince: refined, charming, capable of carrying a film on likability alone. Puri Jagannadh had a different idea. He saw in Mahesh Babu the possibility of something harder and less forgiving, a hero who did not need the audience to like him, only to believe him. Pokiri was the proof of concept. It worked so completely that the question of whether Mahesh Babu could be a mass hero was never seriously asked again. Before Pokiri, Puri Jagannadh had a personal score to settle. He had directed films before, some of which had worked, but nothing at the scale he believed he was capable of. He sat across from Mahesh Babu and walked him through the story: an undercover police officer who embeds himself inside a criminal network, assumes the identity of a contract killer, and has to convince everyone around him, including the woman he falls for, that he is exactly who he says he is. Mahesh liked it but …
