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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HOSTAGES 2 (2020) review

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HOSTAGES 2 [2020] 

Director: Sudhir Mishra 

Cast: Ronit Bose Roy, Kanwaljeet Singh, Divya Dutta, Dino Morea, Sachin Khurana, Amit Sial, Asheem Gulati, Mohan Kapur, Shriswara Dubey, Shibani Dandekar, Shilpa Shukla, Shweta Basu Prasad, Danish Sood, Surya Sharma, Dalip Tahil and others. 

With a smooth transition from season 1 to 2, this time with a bigger canvas and multi-star cast this crime thriller is good in parts and disappoints in major portions. 

Some people are held hostage in a dilapidated British era mansion by a group of kidnappers, there’s a kidnapper on a vengeful mission, alternately there is also an assassination plan being executed in a parallel storyline. 

Mishra’s direction is good enough but several loose ends and multiple potholes including long really long unnecessary closeup shots and ‘silent’ stares give it a cheap Ram Gopal Varma ‘touch’. Far too many questions remain unanswered by the end of the final episode even if its not meant to be a cliffhanger. 

Roy plays the lead role with an Amitabh Bachchansque charm, similar dialogue delivery and body language of 80s Big B, Dutta’s ‘Aisha Khan’ deserves a dedicated spin off soon. Morea’s antagonist is a major letdown, he tries doing a Christian Bale from American Psycho, unfortunately he neither has the charm nor the acting ability to carry a psychologically complex character. The pint sized bravura performer Shweta Basu Prasad excels with a multi layered impressive act. 

Probably this is more of a performance driven Web-series letdown by a sloppy narrative, may work for some. ⭐️⭐️ 

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