Mosagallu

Mosagallu (transl. “Deceivers”) is a 2021 Telugu techno-thriller directed by Jeffrey Gee Chin and written and produced by Vishnu Manchu under AVA Entertainment and 24 Frames Factory. Based on a real large-scale tech-support scam run out of Indian call centres, it stars Vishnu Manchu and Kajal Aggarwal as siblings, with Suniel Shetty, Ruhi Singh, Navdeep and Naveen Chandra. Delayed by the pandemic from June 2020, it was released on 19 March 2021, with dubbed versions in Hindi, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam.

What the story is about

The film is inspired by a series of real events, reported by The News Minute, in which call centres in India conned people in the United States out of hundreds of millions of dollars. Anu and Arjun, siblings born into poverty, hatch a plan for easy money with their friend Sid. With the backing of a rich man, Vijay, they set up a call centre and start swindling American taxpayers out of millions. An upright police officer, Aajit Kumar Singh, takes on the case. The film plays out as a cat-and-mouse game, and also as a story about clashes between generations, East and West, and rich and poor.

Cast

• Vishnu Manchu as Arjun
• Kajal Aggarwal as Anu, Arjun’s sister
• Suniel Shetty as Additional Commissioner of Police Aajit Kumar Singh
• Ruhi Singh as Mohini
• Navdeep as Vijay
• Naveen Chandra as Sid
• Tanikella Bharani as Mukund, Arjun and Anu’s father
• Nagineedu as the DGP
• Raghu Babu as a swamiji

Director: Jeffrey Gee Chin. Writer-producer: Vishnu Manchu. Music: Sam C. S. Shooting began in June 2019.

Reviews

The Times of India gave it 2.5 out of 5, calling it “an intriguing premise that falls flat due to a weak narrative”, though Vishnu and Kajal give decent performances. Samayam Telugu (2.5/5) called it an average film with good performances from the two leads. Sangeetha Devi Dundoo of The Hindu found it only partly engaging, and Eenadu liked the plot and performances but felt the screenplay and climax needed tightening.

Budget and box office

In December 2020 The Hans India reported a budget of ₹51 crore. The film did very little business: Wikipedia, citing The Hans India and The Times of India, gives a gross of about ₹0.5 crore and calls it a box-office bomb, although the Times of India headline describes it as “an average runner”. We report both rather than pick one.

Where to watch Mosagallu

We do not have a confirmed streaming listing for Mosagallu on file. If we verify one with a platform, it will appear on this page.

Sources: the Wikipedia article on Mosagallu and the reviews and reports it cites, linked above; our own cast and crew records.