Jazbaa

Whats good about the film is its fast paced with enough suspense to keep you engaged. Jazbaa is tight, gripping and shot in Gupta's signature style. Clearly the film belongs to Aishwarya. She manages to make Anuradha believable. Atul Kulkarni, Shabana Azmi, Jackie Shroff, Irrfan Khan fill up the frame with their strong performances.

Despite having a good story, the director has badly written characters that stands out like a sore thumb in an otherwise stellar star cast. The slow motion scene where Aishwarya runs and screams her daughter's name before interval is too over the top and theatrical. It ruins the subtleness. The flawed moments in Jazbaa are those where Gupta asks his actors to do more, whether it is to scream louder, fight harder, or say the lines with more drama.

Over all, the film is an edge of the seat thriller that delivers because of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Irrfan Khan's able performances, Jazbaa is definitely not a worst film. Had it been a different director, then the film would have been the best.

A perfect choice of subject by director Sanjay Gupta (an official remake of a Korean crime thriller titled SEVEN DAYS), JAZBA's script had all the essential elements presenting a young, strong (lawyer) mother fighting for her kidnapped daughter along with a suspended police officer helping as a dear friend.

But sadly the strong merit couldn't help the film falling way short of the expectations raised and even the potential borrowed plot didn't turn out to be that supportive for Aishwarya due to many major visible issues in the execution. Giving you the basic reason for this less impressive result, it's the more than required, hyperactive efforts put in almost every department of the film converting it into a visibly 'over the top' product trying too hard to present its case in front of the common viewer. And the biggest culprit of them all remain the so unrealistically written cheeky dialogues (especially of Irrfan), that are intentionally added just to (vaguely) entertain the audience aiming at some occasional applause in the theater.

Admitting the truth, yes the dialogues work well as the film begins and one enjoys watching Irrfan rendering them stylishly too till the first 30 minutes are over building a fine base. But once the characters start emoting as per the script's main track, every such line spoken with all forced philosophy of life becomes irritating enough, straight away reminding you of many copy-pasted life teaching quotes regularly found at FB, Twitter and Whats App. Exactly the same can be said about Aishwarya's performance too, that also remains fairly impressive in the beginning but soon steps on to the avoidable 'overactive' & 'emotionless' gear once the director asks her to start shouting as loud as she can in many repetitive sequences. Besides, I was really surprised seeing the pre and post interval portions in particular where she was made to do everything so hyperactively right from the widely open red eyes to all forceful screaming and the so well-controlled, stylishly conceived running in slow motion.

Moving ahead the next insertion in the film that fails to make any impact whatsoever is the so overly done colour correction of the frames, particularly the ones (repeatedly) showing Mumbai and its skyline taking it far away from anything seen in the real life. Talking about the music, I have started writing less and less on this specific department of our latest Hindi films, as they are really not interested in giving anything worth writing about since long, with only a rare occasional OST proving to be the important exception. So same is the case with JAZBAA too that does have a couple of above average songs which as usual don't fit into the film tensed narration from any angle. To be exact, apart from the painfully loud and interfering background score, the film opens with a soul-less track played along with its opening titles and then after some 40 minutes throws a good sounding ghazal appearing from nowhere only to be followed by a typical club-item-rap-song, exactly like the one Irrfan himself had made a spoof of just a few weeks before associating with the AIB boys. (A true irony of our system, quite clearly!)

Coming back to another well intentioned merit of JAZBAA, it does try to present itself as an anti-rape and women empowerment supporting film in its final 30 minutes (ending with a text slide too). But unfortunately the over dramatic melodrama and an easily predictable suspense executed without any inspiring vision, doesn't let it become one of those significant movies made with a noble aim or purpose of some kind of social awakening.

In the performance section, where Aishwarya plays her strong character of a mother and lawyer in a confusing-overactive tone, there Irrfan Khan looks like walking on a very thin line of getting typecast in all similar looking roles speaking some nasty lines with a straight face, exactly like we have seen him in the last few films. Honestly I also felt as if I was not watching the same exceptionally talented actor in the scene when he starts throwing some hamming tantrums after being told that Aishwarya's daughter has been kidnapped.

Moreover another specific sequence of the film dealing with the allergic child & her medicine reminded me of an exactly similar scene in a different movie featuring Irrfan Khan only playing the kidnapper worried for the kid-girl (suffering from an asthma attack). The film was DEADLINE - SIRF 24 GHANTE (2006) which was itself an inspired version of an English flick titled TRAPPED (2000). But I really wonder did Irrfan even remember the film and if yes then did he also mention the same to Sanjay Gupta just to provide some added information to his director. Continuing with the performances, JAZBAA majorly struggles in its supporting cast department too with only Shabana Azmi partially succeeding among many other talented actors in the list. And surprisingly the list includes names such as Atul Kulkarni, Jackie Shroff, Chandan Roy Sanyal and Abhimanyu Singh, simply wasted in their given roles not presented with any kind of powerful portrayal in the script.

So other than few entertaining 'Irrfan moments' in its initial reels and then some fairly engaging moments coming in the final 45 minutes dealing with the case investigations and the court proceedings, JAZBAA doesn't turn out to be anything great or exciting enough as a comeback film of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan made on a potential subject.

But you can still consider it as a one-time watch crime thriller saved by Irrfan Khan that surely could have been a lot better minus the overactive treatment given by its director Sanjay Gupta.

Where do I start with this film? I had initially put this film on for my gran to watch whilst I payed away on my laptop. Despite being occupied by the game, I couldn't help my attention being drawn to the screen multiple times, and ended up getting drawn into it. Now, in a normal situation, this would be because the film is so good, it begs to be watched. In this instance though, it was mostly because I was completely befuddled by the filmmaking choices being made.

First of all, the tint/filter! The film has a very weird greenish filter to it. My guess is to kind of ground it into a gritty atmosphere, but it's very distracting, and there are multiple points in the film where this, combined with the poor lighting leads to very jarring scenes. Just awful.

Second, what the hell is up with the camera work? The film breaks several reasonable rules to follow when filmmaking. A very simple one, for example, is how to shoot two characters in a conversation. You'd usually film their talking heads in sequence of the conversation, but on opposite sides of the screen when showing their heads. Now, this is a loose rule, and you can be creative, of course, but this film makes some very questionable choices. There's a scene where Jackie Shroff is talking to some weasel whilst leaning into the right side of the screen, and the other dude is shot with his head in the hard left of the screen. Why? This is just one example, but in general, the camerawork and cinematography is just poor. I have seen better camerawork in student films.

Then there's the editing, the actor's direction for some scenes etc. All shoddy. You may think me overly harsh, especially if you enjoyed this film, but the reason this particularly irked me is because the film has some good actors and a decent plot to work with (writing somewhat dodgy as well, but let's ;leave that for now). This film could have been so, so much better if a careful hand had tended to it. The actors deserved better than this.

A lady (Shabana) falls in love with an artist kind of person – drawn to him because of his flamboyant lifestyle – late night parties, boozing and even womanising! She probably thought of herself to be very beautiful – and thinking thusly – she married him! She thought that her beauty, personality and love will change his ways – at least he would give up womanising ...and boozing so much....and late night parties as well – but nothing of the sort happened! She then hit upon a great plan – an age-old plan of making a male stay trapped in the mesh of mushy love – give birth to his child! So this lady gave birth to a daughter. Things did not change after marriage..nor after child-birth!

Her husband continued to booze, womanise and make merry! As it is women lose their figure and beauty after birth of a child – and an artist is known to be a worshipper of beauty – he thus alienated more from his fat wife! All this led to a divorce! The daughter then grew up in a broken family. Till the time she was a child – she stayed with the mother – just as soon as she became an adult she wanted to lead a flamboyant life herself! Like father, like daughter! The daughter started living alone in a flat given to her by her father .Financial support too was given by father. So the educated & learned Professor mother just visited her daughter sometimes and in return she was rebuked by her daughter ... probably for not letting her start enjoying her life even earlier!

Her enjoyment was – taking drugs, sleeping with boyfriend(s?), attending late night parties and discotheques, wear revealing outfits....trying out expensive drugs like Angel dust! Wow!! So this is what we get when a professor weds an artist (well, in this film for instance) ! And when the professor mother is asked ( by the advocate in the court room)whether her daughter had boyfriends...she replied – Of course she was so beautiful, innocent, pretty – who wouldn't be drawn towards her! One may then ask – Why did she leave her husband then? – Her husband must have been a 'raseela' personality and many women wanted to sleep with him...so why leave him? – she could be so broad minded when it came to her daughter...why couldn't she show the same broad-mindedness towards her husband?! That way the girl would not have gone through the trauma of growing up in a 'broken family' at least!! ....Though she would still have gone ahead to party, booze and manize (opposite of womanize)...for you see – in the discotheque there were several teenagers jumping high and low – does it mean that all were from broken families? Of course not!

Ash's role: Ash looked like a 24 years old girl in the film!! She is 42 – but she looked 24! I recently watched 'Singh is bling' and was marvelling at Akshaya's physique – how well – lean and muscular and fit he has kept himself – and now I am happier to see Ash – back in full form! It is good to see my contemporaries keeping physically fit....gives one some hope...not that I do even a fraction of the work-outs that they follow to keep themselves fit! Anyways – so Ash falls in love with a bloke and agrees to shift to the US just for him – forgetting all about her Law degree. She was happily adjusting herself as a housewife and things were going fine – till she became pregnant.

Her in-laws get a sex-determination test done on her and up on finding that she was carrying a daughter – they ask her to abort the child!!! Yea- you read it right – she had gone to the US – United States – but she was completely unaware of the fact that she had wed someone who belonged to the clan of absolute jahil-ganwaars (uncouth-illiterates)! She somehow manages to escape the blokes and returns to India – joins a firm as criminal lawyer – because fees and wages of a criminal lawyer is much higher...and she had to bring up her daughter single-handedly!

So the fact that she used her knowledge, wit and intelligence to save the criminals is justified...right?

Irfan's life – He is shown as a corrupt yet decorated Police officer – corrupt – because he accepted and asked for bribe and decorated – because he had got medals to solve some criminal cases! He proved in the film that in the world of the corrupt – one has to become corrupt in order to survive. In the country of the blind – the one eyed man is the king.....but not everyone can become the king ...right – so it is better to be blind and live happily ever after .... the king has many additional duties to take care of... and we, the people, shirk duties and responsibilities like plague!

So the police officer spends his mornings in catching and beating up thugs and nights and late nights in getting sloshed in some bar. He has a soft corner for Ash...which will eventually be reciprocated. So basically Ash will head from fire-pan to fire.....a drunkard police officer suspended from work because of corruption is not an 'ideal' husband material – is he?

Story: I cannot reveal the story right now because it is a new film and people are going to the theatres to watch the film. When people go to the theatres, many people make their livelihood.....so I do not want to snatch food from several mouths. Better go and watch the film!

With "Jazbaa," Aishwarya Rai Bachchan makes a comeback in movies as a criminal lawyer, who defends a case of a rapist and murderer as a ransom to flee her kidnapped daughter. The film is said to be based on a Korean crime thriller "Seven Days" (haven't watched the movie). The pace is fast and the events succeeds before you have a time to think. Aishwarya Rai's voice has been kept loud and fast, and it appears less that she's a lawyer who is defending a case. Aishwarya Rai is a fabulous actress but she appears a bit miscast for the role. Others like Irfan Khan, Shabana Azmi, Jackie Shroff, all brilliant actors, do little to make an impression though Irfan Khan gets a higher footage and plays well. Though the film is fast paced, gets you with adrenaline rush and surprises, by the end the film just doesn't touch you. Neither the film claims any relevance to the social reform or touches the emotions for which the audiences find it mere a watchable time waster.

Rating: 1 star out of 4