'Jigra' movie review: Let down by its second half

Film JigraUA Action thrillerDir Vasan BalaCast Alia Bhatt Vedang RainaRating 25Irsquom hardly revealing serious insights to suggest there are few scripts in the world blessed with stamina to equally pull through the second halfMost start with a promise progressively losing steammdashonce the novelty of the world or picture starts to wear offThis could also be because fewer scripts still work their way backwards first determining the endmdashsomething that directorwriter Zoya Akhtar says she does with all of hersThe end of Jigra is its genre ie prisonbreakOnly the entire second half of the movie plays out like a neverending climax with musicmdashcurated like a playlist of different moodsmdashto salvage the screen How much can you possibly set up to explain a payoff that lasts foreverIt feels hence as if they filmed an unfinished script Stopping at a point and upon being asked what happens next simply concurred ldquoSecond half bas golibarood just guns bombsrdquoWhy such disappointment with Jigra then given the phenomenon is so common after allIt has everything to do how as an audience I was rooting for this film not just before its release although that too but more so up to a good hour of the movie itselfmdashsoaking in the sights and sounds unlocking mysteries of this universe that wersquore transported toObserving some clever transition shotsmdashfrom cigar to crackers glasses to skyscrapers Witnessing that gentle scene of fingers of the inmate and visitor touching through the gap of the window in prisonTotally nodding at the movie referencesnods Acknowledging Robert Rodrigues on the phone line Wong Karwai Kim Kiduk etc for prisonersNoticing actor Manoj Pahwa wear Urf Professor Tshirtmdashnaming his own lesser known earlydigital cult film Likewise tipping hat to Zanjeer Agneepath Hare Rama Hare KrishnahellipEaster eggs warm up movie fans to a world while the plot is being hatched Call it the Sriram Raghavan space if you may Keeps you alert as a viewer all the time But to what endThis film is directed by Vasan Balan whorsquos made the popular cred with his two releases so far Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota Monica O My Darling Jigra is a smart title tooIt stars Alia Bhatt who exudes maincharacter energy regardless of where you place her Where is this picture placed exactlyItrsquos gottabe Singapore Sureshot death penalty for drug possession is a dead giveaway Political dissent isnrsquot allowed in publicPeople go ldquolahrdquo at the end of sentences signifying what else but Singlish in Singaporemdashalthough the setting is supposed to be a fictional citystate Hanshi Dao or some such bordering it instead with some chaos of the streets of JakartaBangkok perhapsEither way itrsquos lsquoabroadrsquo where an Indian guy gets jailed for capital punishment for allegedly carrying a tiny quantity of cocaineThink of it then as an episode from the stellar documentary series Banged Up Abroad 2007 Rather than Mahesh Bhattrsquos Naam 1986 where the hero gets dragged into the underworldThe male lead Vedang Raina The Archies has his sister pumped up to save his life Thatrsquos Aliamdashon the back of Heart of Stone Gangubai Kathiawadimdashkicking some assNow you wouldnrsquot ordinarily imagine the petite star in a fullblown mortal combat actioner But then itrsquos about the attitude not the physique right How else have we grown up believing Bachchan beat the crap outta Bob CristoShersquos frickinrsquo ferocious as the saviourprotector of her brother upturning the idea behind lsquorakheersquo as it were Whatrsquos the dynamic between the siblingsWay too spelt out rather than ever feltmdashwith the film itself opening with their father jumping off a balcony to die by suicide a recurring sceneThe drama that follows is mostly around the East Asian prison Usually desi characters get introduced into Indian movies set outside India chiefly so they can talk in Hindi in this caseVivek Gomber plays the jailer villain in the prison Thatrsquos an Indian actor brought in to converse in English throughoutmdashonly to subvert expectationsHe keeps showing up refusing to die or for the film to endmdashwhile the picture itself has travelled from Bombay Singapore to Michael BayAnd I momentarily switch screen to my phone to learn new things from the movie Such as google ldquoHope experiment with ratsrdquo given the instruction for a dialogue in the film Thatrsquos the survival instinct with some rats coming purely from hope or never giving up when theyrsquore thrown to get drowned Which is roughly with the female lead character here tooYeah you wanna ally with Alia but how to keep pace with everything needlessly blowing up anyway Well if yoursquove got the jigra courage go figure

'Jigra' movie review: Let down by its second half

Film: Jigra
U/A: Action, thriller
Dir: Vasan Bala
Cast: Alia Bhatt, Vedang Raina
Rating: 2/5

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Home / Entertainment / Bollywood News / Article / 'Jigra' movie review: Let down by its second half

'Jigra' movie review: Let down by its second half

Film: JigraU/A: Action, thrillerDir: Vasan BalaCast: Alia Bhatt, Vedang RainaRating: 2/5

Trending Stories

Latest Photos

Latest Videos

Latest Web Stories

Mid-Day Fast

Film: Jigra
U/A: Action, thriller
Dir: Vasan Bala
Cast: Alia Bhatt, Vedang Raina
Rating: 2/5