- Date of Release: 10 April 2025
- Genre: Action, Drama, Thriller
- Language: Hindi
- Watch On: Theatres Only
Jaat
Introduction
In a scene just before the first brawl featuring the unnamed protagonist, you literally assume that he is on a cultural exchange program. He is hangry and longs for dal-roti, only to be provided with a plate of hot idli, just before being shoved thereby resulting in the plate falling down. In the very next moment, the writers come up with a supposed marquee scene – ‘Dhai Kilo Ka Haath Poore North Ne Dekha Hai, Ab Poora South Dekhega’ (never mind the translation) are the words uttered. It was literally an extention of Sunny Deol’s character from Damini (1993), just that the setting here remains a coastal village in Andhra. There is a further exchange of ‘Sorry Bol’ (Say Sorry) that virtually acts as a trigger point for the set of events that follow, in what essentially remains a good versus bad drama. And I must say that the drama did work for me (partially) in the first half too. The reason was simple – a basic plot that ‘chose’ to revolve around a handful of characters with skewed moralities. I would take you back to the first Singham (2011), and one of the reasons why that film had worked was primarily on the repeated face-offs between the protagonist and the antagonist, something that acted as a coherent thread in an otherwise incoherent drana largely. I was distracted and I was designed to! But that isn’t the case here with the drama that later chooses to raise the stakes repeatedly, until there isn’t any room, after which the easy ‘video-game’ mode disintegrates the drama completely.
Story & Screenplay
If I were to put the logic aside, one of the major reasons why Jaat scores initially is because of its world building. There is an effort to etch out the basic skeleton of the antagonist Ranatunga (Randeep Hooda, lol he is shown to be from Sri Lanka ; cricket fans in the house) and his brother Somulu (Vineet Kumar Singh). Both these characters are shown to be porters who escape their homeland and land on the eastern shores of India for a fresh start. A couple of flashbacks and a time jump later, you get to know that they are now the powerful land mafia, having built their empire over a period of 15 years. Ranatunga in particular is compared to Raavan, often shown to be standing in front of a ten-headed statue, or even posing in front of the blurry (‘cough’ ….censored) image of Jesus Christ, terrorizing the Chr*stians, while also forming a fetish of not only killing but beheading H**dus and M*slim characters in the fields. Yes, he is secular! And if Ranatunga is the modern day Raavan, no prizes for guessing who our Lord Ram is.
The mythological themes, I must say, are quite forced into the narrative. There isn’t a constant streak of the character traits that each of the characters possess. It is just a binary way of representing characters, largely with broad strokes with the sole purpose to portray their basic moralities. It isn’t something like the character of Pawan (Salman Khan) in Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015) that had the trait of Lord Hanuman consistently fleshed out, right from his terrific introductory sequence to him being portrayed as a ‘Hanuman Bhakt’ with respect to the chain that he dons. You see, there was a purpose wherein the mythology was weaved into the drama seamlessly.
I must say that I did enjoy the drama featuring the hangry protagonist who literally goes on a ego-trip in layers, tactfully beating the cartel hierarchy in pulp, all in exchange for an apology. There is a playful ‘badass’ nature that would have eventually given the drama an identity of its own, had the writers stuck to this theme. The need of the hour was to continue to stay local with respect to the setting, with the ‘outsider’ flaunting his opportunity to be a local ‘Superman’ (the creativity could have been to reference him from a state called ‘Krypton’). And this would have also worked with respect to the antagonist – ‘kuch bhi karneka par uska ego hurt nahi karneka’ (remember Jaikant Shikre from Singham?). But, this entire naivety of the drama comes to a standstill when the protagonist after receiving an apology from the highest in command, realises that not all is fine around him – and that something remains wrong. This felt like a meta-reference with respect to its writers who felt the same, and with the need to raise the stakes in the drama with a fervour of hyper-nationalism, jingoism and everything in between. The result – the drama disintegrates in the second hour.
There are literally unintentionally funny sequences in the second hour. The protagonist running into a random ’empty’ village seeking help for another injured and dying character (why not a hospital again?), who dies in a heartbeat. And then comes the idea of raising the stakes in the game in the form of multiple flashbacks. In fact, every second minute is a flashback – an international meeting involving a corrupt politician hiring Ranatunga to eliminate villages and reclaim the land for a truckload of money. The atrocities on the people wherein even writing letters isn’t enough – they need to chop off their thumbs too (and problematic for women who are stripped naked, and men who are beheaded not just ‘killed’). The ‘further’ backstory of Ranatunga who is a well-known International terrorist – first stationed in Jaffna, later eliminating the rebel group, and later settled in India. Even the unnamed protagonist changes professions four times (four career switches would send tremors down a Indian household) – he claims to be a farmer and a patriot until a couple of characters recognize him, one as a ‘superhero’ criminal, and the other as a soldier, only for it to be implied to be a combo of ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan’ packaged in a person. Atleast there was no reference to Pakistan (and that is a win in my books), else the protagonist could easily have been Tara Singh from Gadar 2 (2023) – no kidding, with the way things were going. Clearly, the writers lose the plot here!
The one thing that you expect when the stakes in the drama are raised, remains the fact that the final face-off between the protagonist and the antagonist would be worth your time. And for that, you require two things – a strong antagonist, and a seemingly vulnerable protagonist resembling an underdog. But what happens when either of the two ingredients are hampered? The result is diluted. This is exactly what happened here – the heroic personality of the protagonist transformed into a superhero, that literally made him toil like an easy level of a video game. Hence, despite the antagonist randomly gunning down people, the impact just wasn’t there in a finale that felt straight out of the Singham Again (2024) set! There were no layers to it, no real massy moments that would force me to clap and whistle, just pure vanilla kind of a finale that wished to station itself on jingoism that literally found its way in the script out of nowhere! It literally seemed like a Telugu script discarded for good, only to be recycled for the Hindi viewers in the name of mass! The screenplay completely disintegrates in the second half, thereby bringing the film crashing down!
Dialogues, Music & Direction
The dialogues are intended to cater to the ‘mass’ with the way the lines are designed. And I must say that a few lines do land along the way. The music is largely forgettable but I also had a little issue with the ‘item’ song placement that came out of nowhere. Well, there are no rules to this universe and to the massy films, so let’s just skip the IQ! The BGM works well here, particularly in character introductions and also against the backdrop of action set-pieces that are stylized. But having said that, the action choreography needed to be way better given how the level of an actioner has been raised after Kill (2024) and Marco (2024). The cinematography comprises of frames that you would generally associate in a massy film – wind blowing in the barest of lands, people defying gravity while bumping off the ground, and gory scenes that include a character being headed while the blurry image of blood overlooks another character, you get the gist. It isn’t novel but everything that you would expect in a commercial entertainer. The editing is decent in trying to create a sense of coherence in the drama. Director Gopichand Malineni scores with the world building but later completely goes on a tangent, in a bid to raise the stakes. As a result, the focus shift from the core plot while ridiculously taking you at random places across the globe, something that dilutes the drama to a large extent. Yes, his presentation of the characters is pretty impressive, but that cannot be used as an excuse to compromise on the story and deviating from the core plot. In that sense, the direction doesn’t always score in the drama.
Performances
The performances are a mixed bag here, and one of the major letdowns remained the casting. Ramya Krishnan, Jagapathy Babu, Makarand Deshpande and Vinay Varma have literally very little to do here. Upendra Limaye is fast becoming that one actor who is used as a catalyst to boost the prowess of the hero in specific scenes, which is such a shane given his tremendous acting chops. Saiyami Kher as Vijayalakshmi struggles with the pitch of her character, almost being unsure on how much seasoning is enough for her character to be impactful. Regina Cassandra as Bharathi doesn’t quite possess the quality of a conniving and sinister character here. Vineet Kumar Singh as Somulu is entertaining and definitely has his moments to shine in the drama. Randeep Hooda is such an underrated actor and he is yet again in top form as Ranatunga. He is intimidating and menacing while doing a solid job. Sunny Deol as Jaat is incredibly good too. It is astonishing on how much intensity and energy he packs into his performance – be it in delivering some heavy-duty one-liners, or the effort and expressions during the action sequences. He is terrific here and plays a character that suits his onscreen personality to the core.
Conclusion
Jaat is a discarded Telugu script sent on a tone-deaf cultural exchange program thereby resulting in a mixed bag. While the drama decently scores with its world building in the first hour, the over-ambitious second hour disintegrates the drama to a very large extent, making me want tell the makers – Sorry Bol (Say Sorry). Available in a theatre near you.
