Jaat movie review

Continuing the trend of Hindi film heroes doing films with South Indian film directors, Sunny Deol teamed up with the director, Gopichand Malineni for, Jaat, a commercial mass masala entertainer. The film produced by, Mythri Movie Makers, People Media Factory and Zee Studios, was released in theatres today. Did Sunny Deol deliver another blockbuster film after Gadar 2 in 2023? Did Gopichand Malineni deliver a hit film with his debut Hindi film? Did Mythri Movie Makers continue their success in Hindi after Pushpa series films? Let’s figure it out with a detailed analysis.

What is it about?

Srilankan Tamizhan, Ranatunga / Muthuvel Karikalan (Randeep Hooda) along with three of his friends enters a coastal village of Prakasam District, Andhra Pradesh, India, as a refugee and establishes a huge criminal network across forty villages in the Prakasam District. Ranatunga along with a central minister (P. Ravi Shankar) agrees on a deal worth twenty-five thousand crores, with a Switzerland-based businessman. As part of the deal, Ranatunga has to evacuate people from thirty-plus villages in the coastal region of the Prakasam District. Why does the Switzerland-based businessman want to evacuate people from thirty-plus villages? How will Jaat Aka Brigadier Baldev Pratap Singh (Sunny Deol), a stranger on the lookout for breakfast when his train journey halted midway, end up fighting against Ranatunga? What is the backstory of Jaat Aka Brigadier Baldev Pratap Singh? Forms the rest of the story.

Performances:

Sunny Deol as Jaat Aka Brigadier Baldev Pratap Singh, delivered a subtle yet powerful performance. He was completely at ease during the action sequences. His fans may like a few references to his earlier films’ dialogues immensely. Randeep Hooda as an antagonist delivered a menacing performance. His performance as a ruthless and bloodthirsty, Ranatunga, deserves appreciation.

Regina Cassandra as Bharathi, the ruthless wife of Ranatunga, delivered a very good performance. Saiyami Kher’s role started on a good note but ended up becoming very melodramatic. She did a good job with her performance. Vineet Kumar Singh as Somulu, the brother of Ranatunga, did well.

Jagapathi Babu, Murali Sharma, Zarina Wahab, Upenndra Limaye, P. Ravi Shankar and Ajay Ghosh Made Made Medi their presence felt in the template Driven Roles.

Technicalities:

Thaman’s background score is pretty loud. He used the same pattern of score that he used multiple times in the past for commercial action entertainers. Songs composed by him are strictly ok. Rishi Punjabi’s cinematography is one of the major highlights of the film. The way he captured the coastal region and his camera work and frames during a few action sequences are first-rate. He did a terrific job throughout the film.

Naveen Nooli’s editing should have been better. Editing of at least ten to fifteen minutes of runtime would have made the film crisp. Production values by Mythri Movie Makers, People Media Factory & Zee Studios, are first-rate. Every penny that was spent on the movie was very visible on the screen. The frontbenchers in single screens may like the dialogues but most of the dialogues written by Sai Madhav Burra & Saurabh Gupta are outdated and cringe worthy.

Gopichand Malineni succeeded only to an extent as the director and story and screenplay writer. He did came up with a few good blocks at regular intervals but in-between he filled the screentime with never ending action sequences and overtly melodramatic emotions, especially in the second half.

Positives:

1.⁠ ⁠‘Sorry Bhol’ Episode
2.⁠ ⁠Sunny Deal Screen Presence
3.⁠ ⁠Randeep Hooda’s Performance
4.⁠ ⁠Cinematography
5.⁠ ⁠‘Police Station’ Episode In Second Half

Negatives:

1.⁠ ⁠Beaten to Death Storyline
2.⁠ ⁠Routine Screenplay
3.⁠ ⁠Overdose of ‘Tollywood’ Flavour
4.⁠ ⁠Forced Melodrama In the Second Half
5.⁠ ⁠Too Many Action Sequences
6.⁠ ⁠Cringe Dialogues

Analysis:

Since the release of ‘Baahubali: The Beginning’ in 2015, we have been witnessing PAN India films in multiple languages. These PAN India films usually will be made in one language and then will be dubbed and released simultaneously in multiple languages. But the director, Gopichand Malineni, with the film, Jaat, tried to give a new definition to ‘PAN India’ films.

He has written a script with the ‘Tollywood Template Driven Commercial Entertainer’ format and instead of doing it with a Telugu hero, he chose Bollywood mass hero, Sunny Deol to play the lead role and did the film in Hindi. The story of the film is set in Andhra Pradesh, apart from five to six actors, all other actors in the film are from the Telugu film industry. The screenplay, the hero introduction song, the elevations, etc. remind us of many Telugu films in the past.

Although the format is routine, Gopichand Malineni came up with three to four blocks that worked well. The entire screenplay around the ‘Sorry Bhol’ episode in the first half, the interval block, the police station episode in the second half and Jaat’s backstory-revealing episode during the climax, worked in the favour of the film. All these episodes has a good chance of working well among the Hindi mass audience and the fans of Sunny Deol.

On the flip side, there are quite a few action sequences throughout the film. There were seven action sequences just in the first half and the count keeps on increasing for every five to ten minutes in the second half. Another drawback of the film is the flashback episode of the villages. Instead of establishing a strong emotional connection with the audience, the entire episode ended up becoming overtly melodramatic and cliched.

Overall, Jaat is decent commercial entertainer that is aimed at the fans of Sunny Deol and the mass audiences who don’t mind watching template driven commercial films with a lot of action sequences and whistle worthy elevations to the lead actor. It has a good chance to work well with the mass audiences in Haryana and in few other states in the Northern part of India.

Jaat – not ‘hero’ & telugu ’emotion’

Rating – 2.5/5

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