Pallavi, a newspaper editor, finds a mysterious typed love letter in a bottle in the seashore. She is fascinated by it and shows it to her colleagues. They print it in their newspaper and get numerous responses. Pallavi, due to her personal curiosity, tries to reach Sivamani, but he ignores her. Rajnikanth helps Pallavi get close to Sivamani, and his past is revealed. Sivamani is an honest cop in Visakhapatnam (Vizag). He falls in love with Vasanta, who aspires to become a singer. Dattu is a mafia don, whom Sivamani troubles a lot.
Vasanta is distantly related to Dattu, and both of them are from Kerala. In the course of events, Sivamani's mother becomes paralyzed. Sivamani and Vasanta take her to Kerala to get Ayurveda treatments. Dattu is also in Kerala, and his mission is to get his revenge by taking Vasanta away from Sivamani. Vasanta becomes mute after Dattu punctures her voice box. The rest of the story is about how Sivamani gets Vasanta back with Pallavi's help.
Sify gave the film a verdict of 'let down' and opined, "The much hyped Sivamani-9848022338 is a kichidi that neither pleases the classes nor the masses".[3] Jeevi of Idlebrain wrote, "You can watch this film for Nagarjuna and the cool flashback episode of the first half".[4] Mithun Verma of Full Hyderabad wrote, "But overall, Puri has paid too much attention to untimely gimmicks and tried to cram in everything possible into Shivamani".[5]
The dialogue of the character Sivamani "Na peru Sivamani, nakkonchem mental" (transl. My name is Sivamani, I am a bit mental) became popular during the early 2000s.[6]
A legal suit was filed by an individual who owns the phone number alleging that the makers of the film did not attain his permission to use the phone number in the film. He alleged that he received calls from people in the hopes of speaking to Nagarjuna, and that it had caused him "immense agony".[8]
Legacy
In April 2020, during the lockdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic in India, a short video from the film was shared by Nagarjuna, in which the dialogues of Sivamani were mimicked and replaced, with a warning to the goons of not wearing masks and asks them to wear masks and maintain social distance.[6]
