JAWAAN (2023) : review

Image
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 ...

THE BIG BULL(2021) : review



Directed by: Kookie Gulati 

Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Ileana Dcruz, Samir Soni, Sohum Shah, Shishir Sharma, Saurabh Shukla, Ram Kapoor, Supriya Pathak, Nikita Dutta, Mahesh Manjrekar and others. 

Streaming on : Disney hotstar 



Well, the timing is all wrong. Last year in the midst of the horrendous pandemic lockdown we were treated to a perfectly conceptualised web series called Scam 1992( 2020) that streamed on sonyliv, that was almost flawless if you ignore some minuscule minor errors, and now we have a full fledged movie based on the same storyline, or facts. Frankly, even if we try to erase scam 1992 out of our brain we will still find The Big Bull (2021) terribly miscalculated and badly executed. 



While the web series very boldly named names including that of a former prime minister of our nation, the film plays its considerably safe but not sound. No names are exposed, everything is given a fictional dressing, worse the lead character played by Junior Bachchan which is very obviously modelled on the notorious Harshad Mehta, is made to look like a hero! The comparisons with Scam 1992 are inevitable as it was better researched and the performances were realistically impressive. 

Here the story progresses obnoxiously fast. The transition from a dilapidated chawl to a high rise penthouse happens in a quickie and you wonder what miraculous stock investment could help you skyrocket at that speed. The director loses steam right from the first ten minutes. 



The recreation of the late 80s and 90s looks bollywoodish filmy. Nothing authentic or praiseworthy, wish the retro period was recreated with a lot more research and better supervision. 

Performance wise Bachchan is a complete disappointment. He’s been consistently delivering ducks at the movies in the past two years. It’s like a role of a lifetime messed up very sincerely, his stiff personality and visibly rehearsed dialogue delivery make him appear like a mannequin. Dcruz looks gorgeous and performs well on a Sucheta Dalal inspired character. Even Sohum Shah is delightfully impressive. But let’s face it, the protagonist is like the backbone of any movie and here the backbone is painstakingly weak! 



Even if viewed without being compared to the original web series last year, this movie falls short of expectations, too many factors contribute towards its ill fated disastrous presentation. ⭐️

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

FLASHBACK# An Affair To Remember ?

An uncut diamond called SARIKA

Flashback# WHERE IS NEETA MEHTA?