Sidda Reddy is a powerful gangster. His right-hand man Devadaya "Devudu" Sharma has a lover named Malli. Reddy, who also likes Malli, takes her to his bed, which is not liked by Devudu. Eventually, Devudu kills Reddy and becomes the leader of the gang. Venkateswarlu is a fire officer, who slaps Devudu when the latter set a marketplace on fire and continued throwing kerosene at the marketplace. Devudu holds a grudge against Venkateswarlu, where he sends him to prison on a framed charge of the murder of Malli's brother Baddu. Venkateswarlu's son G. Seetharam tries to rescue his father, but everybody starts asking him for a bribe to do the work. At the end of the day, CI Mohan and Devudu kill Venkateswarlu. Enraged, Seetaram's mother Shanthi and Seetharam execute the people involved in Venkateswarlu's death in a planned and scientific manner and also finish Devudu, thus exacting their vengeance.
Jeevi of Idlebrain gave 3 out of 5 stars and wrote "Overall, it's an average film that has chances to become hit because of the Teja's mass-attracting episodes and Mahesh Babu's brilliant portrayal of the character".[1] Vijayalakshmi of Rediff wrote "Only a couple of things salvage director Teja's Nijam -- the first is an excellent performance by lead star and teen sensation Mahesh. The second is cinematographer Samir Reddy's camera work.[2]
Box office
In an interview, Teja said "We made Nijam in a budget of ₹6.5 crore; We sold audio rights for ₹2 crore and movie initially were sold for a total of ₹26 crore. In total, we made a profit of ₹5-6 crore and Nijam was not a flop".[3][4] In an interview with The Hindu, Teja told "I worked with Mahesh after he had a flop called Bobby, but Nijam released after Okkadu and people drew comparisons. I don’t argue when people say Nijam was a flop. The film was made with a budget of ₹6.5 crore and sold for ₹21 crore. I repaid money to whoever lost money and still made a huge profit".[5]
Dubbed versions and remakes
The film was also dubbed into Tamil as Nijam, and then again in 2012 as Seerum Singam.[6] The film was dubbed as Meri Adalat in Hindi, in Bengali as Aamar Protishodh and in Bhojpuri as Hamaar Faisla. It was remade as Arjun (2005) in Odia starring Anubhab Mohanty and Gargi Mohanty and Bangladesh as Top Leader (2005) starring Shakib Khan.
