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Star Cast: Priyanka Chopra, Prakash Jha, Manav Kaul, Rahul Bhatt, Ninad Kamat
Director: Prakash Jha
What’s Good: Priyanka Chopra pulls off action extremely well. Her punchlines may even call for a few whistles.
What’s Bad: A botched up plot clubbed with a terrible background score.
Loo Break: Quite necessary in the second half!
Watch or Not?: Jai Gangaajal can be easily missed if you are not a fan of Priyanka Chopra or Prakash Jha.
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Bankepur is just another town in Central India that is plagued with corruption, land grabbing, rape and farmer suicides. Amidst all this is Bhole Nath Singh (Prakash Jha), a cop who has made an empire by selling his conscience and duties towards the people. He is the right hand of Bablu Pandey (Manav Kaul) who is running for elections and his younger brother Dablu (Ninad Kamat). While BN Singh is quite happy being a servant of corruption than being a public servant, his outlook changes when Abha Mathur (Priyanka Chopra) takes over as the DSP.
She means business and is all set to bring law and order in a town that has forgotten it. Will she be able to bring peace to a town that is being ravaged by its own politicians?
Jai Gangaajal Review: Script Analysis
Prakash Jha is known for his films that portray the dusty heartlands of UP extremely well. After making films that deal with corruption, reservation and politics, the newest into the list Jai Gangaajal is a mix of all I’d say. Much like the first part of this film (not a prequel) Gangaajal, this film too focuses on the whole good cop/bad cop thing.
There is hardly anything in this story that we have not seen before. Just replace Ajay Devgn with a glamorous looking actress and present a brave female cop story is what this film is about.
Interestingly, Jha’a story even has a Kanhaiya Kumaresque character played by Rahul Bhatt. An IITian who has sacrificed a high paying corporate job to become a people’s leader.
The film mainly revolves around the issue of land grabbing by politicians. It further trickles down into other matters such as molestation and suicides. One reason why the film fails to rise above the first part is because even though Priyanka is good she lacks Ajay’s grit or create an impact in a cheeky manner like Chulbul Pandey.
With such a predictable plot at hand, there is hardly anything that can really make this film a memorable one. In spite of dealing with hard hitting issues, none of them really hook you into this story.
Jai Gangaajal Review: Star Performance
Priyanka Chopra gives her best as Abha Mathur in spite of a loosely written character. She pulls off action well and one of the scenes where she thrashes a molester in the middle of the street is brilliantly done.
Prakash Jha debuts with this film. He is perfect as B N Singh but overdoes in quite a lot of scenes.
Manav Kaul is the lead antagonist in the film and he does a fine job as the power hungry politician.
Ninad Kamat too plays another negative character in the film. The actor hams slightly and it gets quite irritating.
Rahul Bhatt does a special appearance in the film and he does it quite well.
Jai Gangaajal Review: Music, Direction
Prakash Jha’s Jai Gangaajal starts off well but soon turns into one of his regular films. It is like this film has no purpose except to glorify a female cop character. In doing that, Jha does nothing but make sure that his lady cop has ample of make up and her strands of hair made up in a bun tightly. She is expected to do nothing but crack some punchlines and take off her aviators every now and then.
The final scene where he tries to show her powerful with a fight sequence is crafted so foolishly with horrible editing effects that one can only laugh at it. Not to mention an abrupt ending that follows.
The second half tries to up its pace but due to content shortage it falls flat. Also, this lack of content makes the film drag in the second half.
As mentioned earlier, the entire jukebox of Jai Gangaajal is used up as background score for scenes that don’t require it and make it seem extremely disturbing to watch. Jha seemed to have taken inspiration from Anurag Kashyap’s Wasseypur for that but let me tell you it comes no where close to it. (In GOW – the scene where Faisal kills Ramadheer Singh has a killer background score that enhanced it.)
Jha seemed to have been focusing more on his own act than the script and hence the poor treatment.
Jai Gangaajal Review: The Last Word
Jai Gangaajal falters plot-wise, tries to balance it out with performances yet fails to create the right impact. I am going with a 2/5 for this!
Jai Gangaajal Trailer
Jai Gangaajal releases on 4th March, 2016.
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