Jazbaa – Movie Review

Movie Rating 1/5

Waste of Time and Money

Rai is screaming and screeching her way through the film desperate for a comeback

Sanjay Gupta’s Jazbaa has been the talk of the town since quite some time now. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan has received a grand welcome at the box office, as her comeback film “Jazbaa” has opened to good occupancy.

“Jazbaa”, which is a remake of South Korean film “Seven Days”, is directed by Sanjay Gupta and features Aishwarya Rai, Irrfan Khan, Shabana Azmi, Jackie Shroff, Siddhanth Kapoor and Priya Banerjee in important roles.

jazbaaSTORY: Anuradha Varma (Aishwarya), a reputed criminal lawyer, agrees to defend a convicted felon to save her missing daughter. What follows is a moral and social dilemma between the hardened lawyer and the hapless mother.

REVIEW: Aishwarya goes for the jugular in this crime thriller. Inspired by the South Korean thriller Seven Days, Jazbaa revolves around a divorced lawyer, who dotes on her pre-teen daughter. With a 100 per cent success track record, she knows how to get any criminal ‘justice’. However, her world crumbles when her daughter goes missing. The kidnapper makes it clear that he is not interested in money. Rather, he tells her that the only way she will ever see her child again is to free a felon (Chandan) who faces rape and murder charges.

Enters Inspector Yohan(Irrfan), a decorated but suspended police officer, whose heart beats for this lady-lawyer. He accompanies her on her mission to ferret out missed clues and check out alibis.

Together, they meet the young murdered victim’s mother (Shabana Azmi). They befriend her to learn more about her daughter’s rape and brutilisation. As she fills them in with details of the gruesome act, Ash is tormented that she is actually fighting to free an animal! However, her maternal instincts overpower all sense of right and wrong. Into this mayhem comes a politician (Jackie Shroff), who is hiding a drug-addict son (Siddhant Kapoor). Fingers now point in yet another direction. As Ash attempts to piece the jigsaw puzzle together, the film takes some sharp curves and ends in a nail-biting climax.

Gupta, known to be sounder with technique than story-telling (many of his films have been foreign inspirations), has got it right this time.

Jazbaa’s narrative has pace and power. From screeching car sequences to emotionally-charged showdowns between his accomplished lead cast; the film throbs. Which is not to say that there are no flaws. The green hue overshadows Mumbai’s skyline. Aishwarya is rusty at the start but eventually takes charge of the dual aspects of her character. Once in the groove, her eyes breathe fire. Irrfan breezes past with clap-trap Kamlesh Pandey dialogues, such as –Mohabbat hai is liye jaane de raha hoon, zidd hoti toh baahon mein hoti. Shabana is flawless. Aishwarya has made a judicious screen choice after that five-year hiatus!

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