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 from Kaml
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MIRZAPUR 2 (2020) review

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MIRZAPUR 2 (2020) 

Directed by: Gurmeet Singh and Mihir Desai 

Cast: Ali Fazal, Pankaj Tripathi, Divyendu, Shweta Tripathi, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Rasika Dugal, Rajesh Tailang, Vijay Verma, Amit Sial, Shahnawaz Pradhan, Sheeba Chadda, Meghana Mallik, Anjum Sharma and others. 

When the season one aired two year ago it was novel, shocking by conservative Indian standards, viewers were still getting accustomed to the uncensored, dark side of the ott platform, web-series in particular. Mirzapur2 suffers from the same disability as Sacred games2, over exposure of content. We’ve already seen it all, so what more can they provide? 

Unfortunately season 2 relies unapologetically on the strong premise of previous season, there’s nothing new to offer, the original content or any shockers we expect are missing, though it’s only on basis of first impressions and first two episodes alone, the spark is missing. With Guddu, Golu and Sharad burning with the desire of revenge, and the Tripathi family consolidating their supremacy in Mirzapur, it’s more of an dated 80’s trashy Bollywood saga here. Only Kaleen Bhaiyya’s cool and composed stature harbouring the subtle brutality within him, impresses the most. There is also a major shift and focus on political affiliations this time. 

What we need is better content. Mirzapur 1 was not great but there were high selling points, the dialogues smelt of originality, the sequences whetted the appetite of memers and the characters had relatable prominence. That’s missing here, and the pace is awfully slow and eerily Ram Gopal Verma influenced. 

Pankaj Tripathi carries on his cool as a cucumber cold blooded act impressively, this man deserves much more than what he’s getting. Anjum Sharma and Rajesh Tailang shine in their roles, while Ali Fazal and Divyendu look repetitive and complacent. Shweta Tripathi transforms from the coy girl next door of season 1 to a feisty revenge thirsty femme fatale here. For Mirzapur 1 die hard fans the two year long wait isn’t worth this product, not bad but not impressive either. 

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