No One Killed Jessica Review

Cast: Rani Mukherjee, Vidya Balan, Myra Karn, Neil Bhoopalam, Shireesh Sharma,
Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, Bubbles Sabharwal, Yogendra Tikku, Geeta Sudan, Samara
Chopra, Satyadeep Mishra, Rajesh Sharma.
Director: Rajkumar Gupta.

A near forensic attempt to look at prosecution process in the country.
While every one is rushing to blame the judiciary, here is a display that tells
you who is responsible. The nation is going through its greatest crisis:
Credibility Crisis. If we do not survive this, we are all lost. Satyameva
Jayate: Raju, EMAAR, Adarsh, A. Raja, Radia, Kalmadi ——. In the national
capital a socialite is killed. So is evidence, with it hope. In the quasi
fiction adaptation of the night of 29 April 1999 and what followed through the
eyes of Sabrina Lall is an attempt to deal seriously, yet grippingly a sordid
tale of our times.
It is not easy to add reality to a story. It is perhaps even more
difficult to story a reality. Director Rajkumar Gupta therefore has had a tough
call. The fiction – reality matrix however is a gripping end product. It errs on
neither side. Except, you suspect that there is an urge to pointify. The sordid
episode of Jessica shocked the nation. As Sabrina Lall puts it: There is no
hope. There never was.
Clearly: He shot her for an extra drink. What were the implications of
the incident? Did it reflect how the gun-laws of the land are circumvented? Any
law for that matter? Did it reflect how power corrupts even the
‘not-very-powerful’ coming down heavily on Lord Atkin’s time-tested statement:
“Power Corrupts, Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely”. Is it perhaps, the case of
a ‘sick mind’ caught in the cobweb of time, place, wealth, and the like? The
film refuses to tow this line.
The narration starts with Sabrina Lall (Vidya Balan) being woken up
late night with the news that Jessica (Myra Karn) has been shot.
The middle class family is suddenly pitch-forked into the legal
problem. Friends evaporate, witnesses are managed – and not so subtly!! The
courts (and thankfully!) on the basis of the evidence before it acquit the
guilty. Our legal system (again thankfully) does not assume that for everyone
killed, there is a matching killer. The presumption of innocence is a
jurisprudential safeguard and in the context of our times, a citizen insurance.
There is another happening (or non happening!) in the back drop. Meera Gaity
(Rani Mukherjee) is a “super b****” journalist with NDTV. Just back from a stint
at the borders, she first sees no ‘story-value’ in the Jessica murder. It is the
acquittal that gives her a professional jolt or as the cynic may say: an
opportunity. After a flimsy attempt to establish her character, the script gets
the two main players into the track. The script, here wards moves towards a
linear climax as to how the Indian citizenry pressed the ‘alert button’ and got
the erring to book.

It re emphasizes that a sane exercise can for all its short-comings make a good
viewing. I hope the film does well atleast in the Metros. For like justice, even
good cinema depends on the citizen. Lest someone stand up and say: Who killed
Bollywood Cinema?

L. Ravichander.