Jagga Jasoos Hindi Movie Review

Director Anurag Basu tries to make Gone with the Wind with Tom and Jerry. He plans a mammoth three-hour presentation of a fizz and fun film. The grammar is different and daring. Not for the regular film goer who hates experiment. The narrative has style and a lot of it. It is narrated in the form of three comic stories by a person who reappears as a character and leads you to an adventure story told of illegal arms, international smugglers caught in the eastern borders of our country abetted by in house conspirators.
The grammar of the film is visibly and statedly different form the regular form and would therefore find resistance form the status-quoist. I was thus not surprised when loads of viewers were getting bored and were unwilling to go with the experiment. It is surely an experiment worth respecting, given the fact that the film maker comes bold and states so. He rightly realises that and is prepared to even unabashedly declare: Yehi umar hai galti se karle mistake. Even granted that it is a mistake it is informed and stylised.
The spokesperson (Katrina Kaif) is out reading out three comic features of Jagga Jasoos to a delighted young audience (in contra distinction to the know all ones in the multiplex busy with popcorn and cola). We have Jagga an abandoned child with speaking impairment. He stammers and is taught very early in life to get lyrical to overcome stammer. The foster father (Saswata Chaterjee) inculcates a sense of curiosity in the little lad. The first part of the 180 minutes is dedicated to a story that simply does not take off and is labouriously told to show us that Jagga is an investigator in the making. Our own Sherlock Homes. Having established his credential Anurag now takes us into a different world. Here the familiar story of Tom and Jerry, of smugglers, good and bad guys is told through the under stated adventure of a stammering detective and a blundering friend (Shruti) who are initially in search of the missing Dad Tooti Frooti – himself suffering a capacity to blunder and get into soup. They then are hounded by an intelligence officer (Saurabh Shukla in yet another fine performance) and finally on a wonderful eye pleasing trip to South Africa. The story is often told in rhyme as Jagga cannot speak without stammer. Not heavy stuff like Heer Ranjha but simple, tongue in cheek and very contemporary.
What works for the film is the amazing cinematography by Ravi Varman (remember Barfi, Ram Leela…). What also works for the discerning is the courage to gamble with the grammar and the style. Also, what surely works is the Ranbir magic and the Katrina presence. All this notwithstanding this is not everyone’s film. Go for it if you have an open mind and are not the one who cannot think beyond the predictable menu on the card.