JAWAAN (2023) : review

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And finally the much hyped, much awaited Jawaan saw light of the day ! Big stars, big budget( humongous budget actually), big music composer, everything super large. But does it meet the expectations of the average viewer? No it goes not. Read on.  A decorated jawan locks horns with a criminal called Kaali, this is in 1986 ( the year movies like Aakhri Raasta released, just for reference). Kaali gets him eliminated and send the pregnant wife to jail. The baby born in jail grows up to become the hero (look alike of the father) and decides to avenge the misdeeds done to his innocent patriotic parents. Well, isn’t it a masaaledaar full on Bollywood- Tollywood drama subject ?  And then the director Atlee also borrows ideas and references from various retro movies, some idea from Sholay (1975) as the hero assembled a gang of jailed Qaidis in order to form a team to nab the villain, then there’s an entire episode borrowed from Dhartiputra (1993), and the basic theme is copy pasted ...
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DOLLY KITTY AUR WOH CHAMAKTE SITAARE (2020) review

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DOLLY KITTY AUR WOH CHAMAKTE SITAARE (2020) 

Directed by: Alankrita Shrivastava 

Cast: Konkona Sen-Sharma, Aamir Bashir, Bhumi Pednekar, Vikrant Massey, Amol Parashar, Kubbra Sait, Master Kalp, Master Hearty, Neelima Azim, Karan Kundra, Brij Bhushan Shukla, Saurabh Chauhan. 

The director’s earlier movie Lipstick under my burqa(2018) though a terrible movie still had its moments, few but memorable. But this time there’s absolutely nothing worth remembering in this horrendously directed and conceptualised desi ‘Sex and the Noida city’.

Dolly is a Noida based working woman who has to keep her husband, children and boss happy, her young cousin Kitty is a 30+ virgin(a fact mentioned multiple times) working at a phone sex call centre, both women are sexually frustrated, have complicated opinions and assumptions about their sexuality, basically it’s all about sex, sex and more sex, very crude and distasteful sex quite literally. 

All Male characters are depicted as sex maniacs here, there are cringeworthy stereotypes about male sexuality and ‘saffron’ terrorism. Wish the director had focussed more on better characterisation and a stronger storyline instead of filming fully clothed couples rubbing their bodies. There are vocal references to ‘women empowerment’ throughout the movie, when you see the leading lady having sex with a random food delivery boy you realise this is regressive feminism and not any step forward in empowering womanhood. 

There are good actors in the cast but it’s the director’s fault that nobody is impressive, Pednekar fails miserably and Sen-Sharma tries hard in vain to inject some ‘life’ into a comatose character. The ever impressive Massey is so badly cast, while Bashir plays his half baked role with consummate sincerity. 

Now this is a ‘Balaji’ production, so wonder why Ekta Kapoor didn’t stream it on her ALTBalaji App or her favourite zee5 app, hmm when you don’t trust your product you prefer passing on the muck elsewhere,  Netflix in this case. ⭐️

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