Jai Gangaajal movie review and box office collections

 
Director: Prakash Jha

Rating : *1/2.
Star Cast of Jai Gangaajal: Priyanka Chopra, Prakash Jha, Manav Kaul, Murli Sharma, Ninad Kamath, Vega Tamotia, Rahul Bhat, Kiran Karmakar

Jai Gangaajal movie review: Priyanka Chopra’s too-sophisticated unmade-up-make-up is very distracting, even in her few convincing moments. And the film goes on for far too long, even when we know how all of it will end.

The best part about ‘Jai Gangaajal’, director Prakash Jha’s latest foray into the country’s badlands, is a surprise acting turn by Jha himself: as a corrupt-cop-with-a-latent-conscience, Jha looks as if he has been doing this all his life, so comfortable is he in front of the camera.

Too bad you can’t say the same for the leading lady. As the take-charge-policewoman-in-a-tough-posting, Priyanka Chopra comes off as dressed-for-the-part and stilted. You can see she’s trying hard, especially in some of the ‘action’ sequences in which she has to kick and punch and thrash, but she’s far too smooth for this part.

Everything else in this sequel of ‘Gangaajal’, which replaces the khaki-clad Ajay Devgn with Priyanka Chopra, and pouring acid in the eye with a hanging from the nearest tree/post/fan, falls strictly in the seen-before-category. Bankipur, a village over- run by greedy politicians, ‘bikey-huey-cops’, and self-serving locals, could be any Jha ‘gaon’ from his previous films.
The detailing is just a little different—an effeminate ‘chamcha’ (Sharma), a young girl refusing to give up her patch of land (Tamotia), a podgy baddie in colourful shirts (Kamath; nice to see him in a substantial role)—but overall, this is Jha’s much-traversed universe, in which the lawless rule and the law is an ass, till the hero (or in this instance, the heroine) shows up to clean up the mess.

The villains, called Babloo Bhaiyya (Kaul, who’s making it a habit of playing evil pols), and his ‘chota bhai’  Dabloo Bhaiyya, are in cahoots with powerful land-grabbers and goons. Of course SP Abha Mathur (Priyanka Chopra) runs afoul of this mafia, and of course, she is threatened. But this kind of film also needs redemption, so the bad guys are vanquished, and the weak find collective strength to wreck questionable vigilante justice, in order for everyone to go home happy, cynical eyebrows unraised.

But not before we have had many lectures on the sanctity of the uniform, and how, whatever anyone does, it shouldn’t be sullied. And how cops are ‘rakhaels’ of the politicians, who, the film unfailingly suggests, are the worst of the lot. And how the system sucks. “Kuch bhi kar lo par vardi par haath nahin uthaana chahiye tha.” says BN Singh ( Jha), and that is all it takes for him to see the light.
Priyanka Chopra’s too-sophisticated unmade-up-make-up is very distracting, even in her few convincing moments. And the film goes on for far too long, even when we know how all of it will end, and even when we are thoroughly enjoying Jha’s authentic’ leheja’ : ‘aap ko koi galat misguide kiye hain’, he says, and we smile.
I won’t mind watching him again.

Jai Gangaajal box office collections

Jai Gangaajal box office collections have started on quite a slow note managing an occupancy rate of just 15% in morning shows; this is despite this week’s other release Zubaan featuring no morning shows. This Priyanka Chopra starrer was expected to do much better as the actress has been in the news recently both in India and abroad and that should ideally have had a positive impact on the B.O. take.

Jai Gangaajal is a sequel to the Ajay Devgn starrer Gangaajal although both have nothing in common as even the time horizon has been separated from the original.

What has hurt is that the film, directed by Prakash Jha, barely carried out any promotional activity and as a result seems to now have a tough road ahead. It was mostly banking on a booster shot from Priyanka Chopra being constantly in the news over the last few weeks

What is going to be a positive for Jai Gangaajal is the fact that there is little to no competition from other releases and it should just about manage to post a good tally at the box office as it gets into the business end of the run – the weekend.

Of course, with such a bleak start Jai Gangaajal will have to rely on positive reviews and strong word of mouth to post decent figures. On the other hand Zubaan, which received mixed reviews is likely to show some improvement with time, while the Hollywood release London Has Fallen will pick up over evening and night shows.