Alia Bhatt in 'Jigra' delivers a strong act in a weak film

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00:00Hi, this is Manjusha Radhakrishnan. I'm the entertainment editor Gulf News. I'm here with

00:15the review for the Bollywood film Jigra starring Alia Bhatt, Manoj Pawar and Vedang Raina.

00:22This is a prison break drama along with being very emotionally charged. We have Alia Bhatt

00:27who plays the doting sister to Vedang Raina. During their childhood they witness one of

00:32the most traumatic episodes in their life where they see their father plunge to his

00:36death and therefore it's upon Alia Bhatt's character Satya who becomes his mother, his

00:42father. They are orphaned early and it becomes up to her to take care of her younger brother.

00:48I mean she's almost like this mother to him and she takes it upon herself to protect him

00:53from all odds. Even well into their adulthood when a benevolent rich uncle takes them under

00:58their wings, a breadcrumbs them with money and affection, they know they are on their

01:04own and a very bratty cousin of theirs, the uncle's son and Vedang Raina, they start a

01:10business together. They end up somewhere in an island in Southeast Asia and they get into

01:16trouble for drug trafficking. Then comes all the problems where Vedang Raina's character

01:21takes the fall for the brat cousin of his. Now it's up to Alia Bhatt to save his brother.

01:29She comes to the rescue. This is a movie that completely rests on Alia Bhatt's fragile shoulders

01:34and she does a fantastic, phenomenal job of it. I mean hear me out here, when you look

01:39at her, she may do karate, she claims she's a yellow belt but did not become a black belt

01:45because she never plays by the rule. She's this fierce, sassy woman who her sole focus

01:51in life is to be this fixer for her brother, is to just fix everybody's problems. She's

01:56the person who looks at solutions and for her, her brother is her only perhaps tangible

02:04affiliation in her life and the only relationship that she really cherishes. Therefore, she'll

02:09go to great lengths to do it. So the movie rests on her shoulders and she does a phenomenal

02:13job of carrying it through but the problem is the writing as well as the pace. I mean

02:18Vedang Raina, I have to say, is also compared to Alia Bhatt. I mean you have to give it

02:23to him. He tries but there's a vast difference of calibre between the two actors. He plays

02:28the younger brother and the scenes in which in prison where he's wrongly imprisoned, it's

02:33supposed to move you but it looks very clinical. Somewhere you realise that Vedang Raina does

02:38not have the same heft as Alia Bhatt. This movie would have benefited from a tighter

02:44edit and would have also, it just meanders a lot in the beginning. It's also about, it

02:50also makes you want to suspend belief. I mean the first half of the movie is all about the

02:55brother being wrongly imprisoned and sister coming to the rescue and then it's about how

03:00they plot his escape. How these guys, this group of people including Alia Bhatt, led

03:06by Alia Bhatt, just through sheer grit and some resources in terms of money, how they

03:11penetrate a high security prison which we are told is impossible to get into. They're

03:17very strict. It's a country with zero tolerance to drugs. They have a fantastic security system

03:23and surveillance system in hand. How did a bunch of Indians manage to penetrate that

03:28prison? You'll have to suspend belief and that's one of the biggest pitfalls. When it

03:32came to the action, I thought Alia Bhatt did a great job but somehow her diminutive

03:37stature kind of went against her. The action scenes didn't look very convincing although

03:42I found it very raw and visceral. But her doing it, she just looked bruised and battered

03:48in most cases. At that time your heart went out to her but you wondered how does she even,

03:54how is she still standing? So these are moments where you had to suspend belief. The movie

03:59would have benefited hugely if the plot twist towards the end was not so ludicrous. There's

04:05also chemistry between Manoj Paha that I enjoyed. I mean the chemistry between Manoj, a seasoned

04:10actor like Manoj and Alia Bhatt, I thought their chemistry was great. He happens to be

04:15the father of one of the inmates who's lodged in the prison. Again, he wants his son to

04:22somehow attain freedom and the only way out because they are now on death row. They are

04:29tipped to be electrocuted in an electric chair and therefore they just want their loved ones

04:36outside and they'll do anything to get them out. The premise is very similar to the movie

04:41Midnight Express, Alan Parker's film. It'll remind you of that but it did not have the

04:45same emotional rawness or the pull. I think this is a very wasted opportunity because

04:51here you have an actor like Alia Bhatt who's so seasoned, who's so talented. I wish she

04:56got a better movie. Vedang Raina, he has a long way to go. He is decent but there are

05:03many emotionally charged sequences where you feel he does not carry the scenes through.

05:08I have gone with 2.5 out of 5. For my full review, go to gulfnews.com.

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