Hindi movies have a concise differentiation; those that are conceived as intellectual but boring and heavy, and those which are loud, zilch in logic but which nevertheless cater to a large part of the audience.
Jagga Jasoos lies exactly in between. The story is about Jagga, a stammering child who rescues and finds companionship with a person who calls himself Tutti Futti. Tutti Futti, clandestinely involved with something unlawful and dangerous, is his guiding light and teaches him little things through a series of videotapes while he is away. One day he suddenly vanishes and Jagga is informed of his demise.
A keen observer and a passionate truth-seeker, Jagga refuses to buy the death theory and decides to find him with the help of an accident-prone journalist, Shruti (Katrina Kaif). Together, they embark upon a journey which takes them to different cities and scenic locations and makes them run into international arms dealers, tribal people, police, circus people and what not!
Songs have been used as an integral part of the narration and not as forced item numbers, much like The Jungle Book or any such Disney movie. Stammering, which is mostly used to garner guffaws, has been used and handled as a ‘cute’ disability which the character gets over by singing his lines instead of talking (I have a college friend who stammered a lot but was a flawless singer!).
There are many sub-plots in the movie which can be tad distracting but one mustn’t forget that this movie is supposed to be a fun adventure that is a less-explored genre in Hindi movies. The attempt itself deserves credit. Both my kids had a blast watching it and were dancing, especially on ‘Galti se mistake’.
After movies like Barfi, Rockstar, ADHM and again this one, RK has proved his mettle as a talented actor by selecting unconventional roles and topics and owning them. Katrina Kaif isn’t my favourite but I liked her in the movie. If both of them had any personal issues during the making of the movie, they have very commendably not let it show on screen.
I had heard and read extreme reviews about the movie, yet was inclined to spend my time on it mostly out of curiosity (and partially because I love Ranbir Kapoor). I don’t care about the numbers a movie generates. Some so-called successful movies are absolute trash.
Hard-hitting topics like the Purulia arm-drop have been used in the story in a non-preachy way and handled quite sensibly. We complain that Hindi movies work on a ‘formula’ and we hardly break out of it. So when someone does show the courage to swim against the tide and ventures into something daringly new, we can at least give it a watch, right?
That’s a good review! I was skeptical about watching it, but I love RK. If you say it’s not a typical hindi “formula” movie, I’m booking tickets right away 😀 Will let you know how I like it!
Hope you’re well, btw — it’s been a while! 😀
You will love RK in it. He’s like Aamir, not the actor but the character he plays. Hope you enjoy it. I surely did. ????
It has been a while, true. How have you been? I hadn’t written in so long, I used RK as an excuse to start again. ????
Hahah – and I used Khloe 😀
I watched this yesterday…and I did not like it at allllllllll 😐 I never planned to watchit initially, but I guess your review hiked up my expectations…and what I saw was sooooo not what I expected 😐
Not a fan of Katrina at all, but for once, I’ve to say she was not the worst part of the movie. The “musical” concept was good, but I did not like how it was executed; it was an overkill in several instances.
I’m all for illogical, fun adventures, but I felt if the characters kept discovering things and finally cracking the case all “by accident”, it would have made much more sense to me. This seemed like a desi version of Indiana Jones, not half as good.
The places where he stammered, was not funny by any measure. And there were places where he spoke perfectly well 😐
His initial case-solving examples were all good, but for some reason, right from the start, the movie did not capture me. Even after 2/3rd of it was done, I found myself still waiting for it to get really interesting.
Throughout the movie, I felt like I was seeing scenes borrowed/rehashed from several Malayalam comedy movies.
Ranbir was AWESOME – no doubt. But there were some scenes (esp where he doesnt get the tape and he goes back to his childhood home) where I thought he wasn’t “feeling” it enough.
I normally don’t criticise movies too much, but this one had me leaving the theatre with a “What the hell was that!?” I went with two friends, and all three of us came out equally bewildered. And, I got to notice all these “issues” only because the movie failed to capture me.
While I LOVED the scene changes (very well done, like reading a comic book), it reminded me a lot of Baby’s Day Out. And the whole colour schemes and everything were like they were taken rght out of Tintin.
Overall – very disappointing!
Oh my! Apologies to send you to the theatre then. ????????
What do I say? ????????
Hahahahha 😀
Hahahaha. Ok yaar. ????????????
There are so many conflicting reports on this movie but yours seems to be a pretty crisp and bang on the point case of it and I think now I need to go catch this movie in the halls!! 😉
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Thanks