When the going gets tough. Review on Jazbaa

Resolve of an Advocate Mother to bail out a murderer and get her kidnapped daughter released safe and sound.

‘Jazbaa’ is a ditto remake of the Korean Movie ‘Seven Days’ released in 2007.

Story: They are schoolmates and good friends. She used to be a monitor and he a back bencher. Anuradha Verma(Aishwarya Rai Bachchan) is a leading Advocate who fights cases for Criminals because the innocent cannot afford to pay her huge fees. Yohaan(Irrfan Khan) is a decorated police officer well recognized for his contribution in solving cases. He had escaped getting caught accepting bribes but this time he is in real trouble. He is suspended and an arrest warrant is issued against him, thus he approaches Anuradha who refuses to take up his case. Meanwhile, Anuradha’s daughter is kidnapped, not for ransom but to coerse her into fighting the case of a murderer who is sure to be sentenced to death within 4 days. She seeks help from police but her every move is monitored endangering her daughter’s life. She gets bail for the suspended cop Yohan and seeks his help. While her investigation progresses, the case gets murkier with the involvement of a local politician Mahesh Makhani(Jackie Shroff) who does not want to stir up a scandal involving his son in the murder that is being investigated. Anuradha then is able to convince the Judge that there was another angle to the case and the suspect in custody may not be the murderer, thus gets him bailed out. Having achieved the goal, she gets her daughter back but then realizes that there is an angle to another murder.

Plot: The suspense is key to the success of the movie. It is kept intact till the end which keeps the viewer rooted. You will be pleased with the manner the suspense unfolds. It is nicely supported by the cast.

Drawbacks: The film has a slow and boring first half spanning around 50 minutes. The second half is too fast with lot of scenes rushed into, leaving the editing in poor light.  One may have to watch it twice to understand it once. The narrative was not smooth and lot of scenes emerged abruptly leaving the viewer confused and gasping for breath. Some of the dialogues were so aptly written that its delivery seemed too fast and difficult to comprehend. The film runtime is a bit over two hours which includes a few repeated scenes in slow motion which I felt was a wasted screen-time.  The movie in the end provides you statistics on the actual rapes occurring daily and the number of cases actually getting registered but fails completely to effectively address it.

Cast Performance: There were only a few key characters that the plot focused on. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was superb in her role as a successful Advocate. She looked in shape and executed her performance with elegance. Irrfan Khan is one committed actor who never fails to impress with his inimitable style and brilliant performance. His dialogue delivery is amazing and extremely impactful. Shabana Azmi plays the role of the mother whose daughter is murdered. She did a decent job as Garima Chowdhary – a writer. Jackie Shroff’s brief role as the politician came in only as a filler. Though his role was important it did not come across critical to the plot. He just came and vanished. Atul Kulkarni played the Advocate rival to Aishwarya Rai.   Abhimanyu Singh and Chandan Roy Sanyal were satisfactory as the suspects.

Direction: The story and screenplay was already executed. Not every Director is able to come up with a brilliant remake which Sanjay Gupta is an expert at. One would not mind such plagiarism if he or she is able to deliver a product equal to or better than the original. He did it, but should have worked more on the boring first half rather than rushing the second half making the sequences look complicated. However, with an experienced and dedicated cast known for their no-nonsense performance, he succeeds in rendering an intense film. The cinematography is amazing and locales were aptly selected. Kamlesh Pandey did a good job on dialogues which had the desired impact.

Songs: The music and lyrics were brilliant and complemented the visuals. The cinematography added great value to all the songs especially ‘Kahaaniya’ with Aishwarya working out, and  ‘Jaane Tere Sheher ka kyaa iraada hai’.

A select few dialogues: “Jo abhi tak nahi hua wo kabhi na kabhi to jaroor hota hai”; “Sharif wo hota hai jiske mobile mein password nahin hota”; “Agar tu ladies na hoti to tere chehere pe yahi warrant chaap deta”; “Wo maut kaisi hoti hai jiske saamne aadmi phansi ki bheek maange”.

Conclusion: It is quite obvious that we do not have the time to see all movies released in India, leave alone in different parts of the world. This remake of a handpicked Korean movie is worth a watch. The movie has all the elements to entertain you with action, drama and thrill and hence recommended.