Jazbaa Review

Rating: 2.5/5 Stars (Two and half stars)

Star Cast: Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Irrfan Khan, Shabana Azmi, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Jackie Shroff, Atul Kulkarni, Siddhanth Kapoor

Director: Sanjay Gupta

What’s Good: Sanjay Gupta basically has a plus point with this film primarily because he has a gripping tale of Seven Days (Korean Film) at hand. Also it has a strong supporting cast that keeps this film afloat.

What’s Bad: Melodrama clubbed with slo-mo is extremely irritating in the film.

Loo Break: Won’t make much difference.

Watch or Not?: Jazbaa does not promise anything extraordinary. If you have missed Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in films, here is a treat for you. Irrfan Khan fans will certainly enjoy.

User Rating: 

Anuradha Varma (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan) is a single mother and an extremely successful lawyer. She is anything but righteous and finds nothing wrong in defending those guilty.

Yohan (Irrfan Khan) on the other hand is a cop who is undergoing a trial for corruption. He is Anuradha’s childhood friend and hence urges her to fight his corruption case that has him suspended.

Anuradha is having a perfect life until her daughter gets kidnapped on her sports day from school. In exchange of her daughter’s release, Anu is forced to take up a case for Miyaz’s (Chandan Roy Sanyal) release. He is a convicted criminal for rape and murder.

Will Anuradha be able to save her daughter in time? Will she win this case ?

Jazbaa Review: Script Analysis

Sanjay Gupta’s whodunnit is well crafted but mainly picks up in the second half. Irrfan’s character has the witty one liners which are totally entertaining. The best part about the script is the fact that both Irrfan and Aishwarya’s characters are flawed and hence they nowhere come close to being the heroes of the film. Also the story takes off in a cliched manner but gives you a twist when you least expect it.

Problems lie in detailing and hence even though we are shown that Irrfan is a suspended cop who even has an arrest warrant on him, the makers wrongly show him twice leading a team of cops to catch Sanaya’s kidnapper.

Unfortunately, even though it is a whodunnit, Chandan Roy Sanyal’s Miyaz remains underdeveloped as a villain.

Pre-interval, the film does not engage much. An addition to this part could easily have been a better representation of the mother-daughter bond.

Also what seems disturbing is the court-room scenes. Especially since everyone has watched ‘Court’ now and got a real taste of the Indian legal system, watching witnesses barge in the midst of a trial seems unpalatable.

Jazbaa Review: Star Performance

It’s Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s comeback film and it is definitely a delight to see her on-screen again. While she looks brilliant as a stern advocate, I wish she would have delivered her dialogues with the same punch that her stilletoes strut sound. Her blood-shot red eyes and heightened drama in the kidnapping scene could have been more subtle.

Irrfan Khan as always gives a terrific performance. He gets the punchlines and he makes gold of it. Especially his closing line “Mohabbat hai isiliye jaane diya, Zidd hoti toh kaske baahon mein leta”.

Shabana Azmi is the true hero of the film. She puts up a brilliant act as an emotional mother of a rape victim who has been murdered. I can’t say much about her role because it is a treat to watch it than read it.

Chandan Roy Sanyal plays Miyaz the rapist whom Anuradha is defending. He is an actor of great potential but is wasted in this film. His demented antics do not suffice to be a hate-worthy villain.

Jackie Shroff has a small role in the film of an MP. Nothing that requires a mention!

Atul Kulkarni plays the government prosecutor. His role too is limited and hence does not make much impact.

Siddhanth Kapoor who was praiseworthy in Ugly plays a drug addict Sam in the film. He fails to represent the character properly and is passable in the film.

Jazbaa Review: Music, Direction

Sanjay Gupta is known for his crime/gangster genre of films. With Jazbaa he enters more into a thriller mode. The sepia and green overtones are laid all over the film to compliment the gloomy storyline. What doesn’t work at all for the film is it’s music. Not only is it ill timed but also unacceptable to the ears. Why do we need a Badshah song in the middle of an investigation?

Gupta makes sure that his film picks up in the second half, just when you think the story is over. Unfortunately, a lot of time is wasted in shots of Mumbai overlooking the bay, every-time a new day is shown. Most of the shooting locations remain the same all through, mainly consisting of abandoned station junkyards. Even though the editing is tight with only a two hour run-time, the scenes of Aishwarya’s slow motion mourning seem to play forever in the film.

This is certainly not Gupta’s best work, but also not the worst one.

Jazbaa Review: The Last Word

More than Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, this film is laced with unmissable performances of Irrfan Khan and Shabana Azmi. I am going with a 2.5/5 for the film.

Jazbaa Trailer

Jazbaa releases on 9th October, 2015.

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