Saurabh Shukla is cracking. There
isn’t one false moment from the new Jolly and above all this Potshot at the
Legal System comes just in time. The producer must be relieved man seeing the
film make it to the theatres. Now it is for the audience to respond. After the
false short at the Aurangabad High Court, filmmaker was quick to ensure that
the larger cause does not get lost in the dust and din of litigation. The
prelude (real) to the film (reel) is perhaps a part that the film maker
(Subhash Kapoor) wants to say. Thematically he stands absolved. He lacks a
tongue in cheek look at the Jusrisprudential caravanserai. The franchise takes
yet another look at how the system, is crumbling. How it is fighting a
desperate battle for infrastructure and men. How the elite can brow beat or at
least attempt to, How the Judicial wing is the last hope spot and correction
stop.
Into the Script (Subhash Kapoor) we have a frustrated lawyer Jagdishwar Mishra
(AK) who fights hard to erase the fact that he is after all the son of an
advocates clerk and cannot outgrow the professional hierarchy. He cheats a
Justice claiming victim (Sayani Gupta). Dumped by his venerated Senior and
principled dad, He has a liquor loving wife (Huma Qureshi) and Birbal (Rajiv
Gupta) who are willing to stand by him. Things get even more difficult when
Hina commits suicide. Now Jagdish alias Jolly gets serious and begins to
investigate as to how Hina’s Husband is a victim of a stage-managed Police
encounter at the hands of the Police officer Suryaveer Singh (Innanuallah).
Jolly now appears in the court of Judge Sunderlal Tripathi (Saurabh Shukla) in
a PIL requiring a full-fledged inquiry into the false encounter. The rest is
the court room dram. The drama, is the genre. It is not larger than life hike. BR
Chopra (Kanoon, Waqt, Humraaz, Insaf ka Tarazu) not dark like Nihlani (Akrosh)
but one that takes the light-hearted route to tell story. Typically, Bollywood
in that it has the multi-talented hero who can do the impossible and the
screenplay will extend till he reaches his focused goal post. No marks
therefore for guessing how the narration will pan out.
The film sticks to its story and moves needlessly out into irrelevance but
rarely. If that too were avoided (like Holi scene) the film would surely by crisper
and more engrossing. The real look that the court hall has, cramped for space,
devoid of even physical dignity, if not grandeur tells a story with great
amazing clarity. Subash is in complete control. Yet the film belongs
indisputably to the awesome presence and performance of Saurabh and Akshay.
They are high octave performers giving you some of the finest moments of
cinema. They add pep and credibility to the high decibel and exaggerated take
on the system
At one level the film is a reminder of what Yasmina Khadra laments in another
context: where scruples, piety, and charity count for nothing.? Where values
are exclusively financial? Where the rich become tyrants and the wage earners
slaves? Where business takes the place of, family, isolates the individual,
subjugates him, then dismisses him without further ado!”
To those out there who are willing to take a serious look at our institutions
light heartedly Jolly 2 is a jolly outing.
Rating: 3 Stars
+ Akshay and Saurabh.
– Exaggerated punch.
L. Ravichander.