Jolly LL.B 2 Overview

                                          Jolly LL.B 2 (2017)

Directed, Written and Screenplay by: Subhash Kapoor

Starring: Akshay Kumar, Annu Kapoor 

Waiting. Her life had divided preclusion of another one; a dying tree with a living sapling. Purchasing an invincible, hackeneyed ease of pleasure from an ambitious yet naïve, i.e. a progressing human; she bought the complacency of approaching death. Her troublesome world, as visualised narrowly on the screen by director, Subhash Kapoor, didn’t just move the audience, it made them pity her. Well, at least the majority of the audience. Sayings belonging to centuries, have made it clear that the catharsis of a progressive human roots for a bolt in the mental affairs. Jolly well be an advocate’s psyche. What steered the wind of smug satisfaction on the protagonist’s face, to the arcade of life, was just one question – Why Her?

On the screen I saw an advocate. The poster child of bourgeois. The hateful enemy of Marx. Post a childish rancour, a witty wedgie backs this lawyer, thus, earning him the devoured fruit of INR 5000. His bragging rights entailed the cunning of advocacy, my neighbours’ bragging rights entailed their beloved ‘hero’s’ acting, but the writer played with the rise of character’s drive to liberation in such a manner that subliminally, we became tuned to the building crescendo of the story.

Jolly, the advocate (Akshay Kumar), was a gimmick to his master. His master, was portrayed as a law-slinger with a royal demeanour. To glimpse you with a synopsis, a light-hearted son of a munshi, aims to become a successful lawyer. Starting his career as an ass kisser to a city-wide famous lawyer, he faces a catastrophe of guilt, which results in a metamorphosis of an easy going individual to an emotionally driven, power devouring lawyer (compare Mike Ross in Aaron Korsh’s Suits). (This metamorphosis, being the answer to the question asked above, “Why her?”) The creator of this hopeful, dramatic world, has sprinkled starry-eyed feminism, box office friendly songs and also, a few amateur screenplay narratives. Thus, what you get in return is a watchable but not impactful montage of cinematic courthouse advocacy.

Juxtaposing with youth’s innocence, was a relationship of wisdom. Wisdom, shared by the two aged fathers of the opposing advocates. When Jolly commits a murderous fraud, his father taunts him with a slander, rendering the former nearly losing his life’s backbone. When the defendant’s lawyer rattles on, without inhibition, for defending a criminal even after the malicious accusations justifying his client; it’s the father, who stops his morally woeful son, eager to glorify his reputation as the best lawyer in the city. Perhaps, it’s the childhood memories, our own spa of comforting safety that a father provides with; a notion with such an impact that the movie viewers ultimately submit themselves to the behavioural tradition of an aged father compelling his child to avoid significant jeopardy. Jolly LLB2 may be an average B-town flick, but it is an excellent minion of the psychology governing our meaningless existence.

Annu Kapoor, played the role of the defendant’s lawyer - Sachin Kantilal Mathur, on screen. One of the childhood memories that I possess, is that of a restaurant along a national highway. I was leaning against the bus and watching the antakshari show, playing on the TV of the restaurant. The show had a cult following and nearly everyone who watched it, loved the host, Annu Kapoor. Nevertheless, I resented his smug face and the attitude. Contrary to that, Annu Kapoor was on his level best in Jolly LLB 2, as the antakshari host now had a character suiting his mien. The dialogue framing, timing and the embodiment of the contemporary 90’s villain was preferably top-notch.

Akshay Kumar, yet again shows the audience that he belongs to the brass of comedy stars. The sombre acting though, was a montage of his acting in his previous movies like Baby and Special 26. Jolly’s wife, Pushpa Pandey (enacted by Huma Qureshi), can be easily dismissed, as the character fails to display with cinematic proficiency, the wife whose husband cooks delicious food for her, brings her fine liquor and deep within her heart feels that he is the greatest love her heart could ever experience.

Someday, there will be a moment, when it’s not going to be me, but some other film aficionado who’ll give a recommendation to watch Sydney Lumet’s courtroom drama and also one of the greatest movies of all time: 12 Angry Men. Then and there, I’ll recommend him/her, one the classiest Bollywood movies of all time, that will stand up against 12 Angry Men with no diffidence. I wish that movie releases soon. I wish.