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Alia Bhatt in 'Jigra' delivers a strong act in a weak film
Gulf News
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2/17/2025
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00:00
Hi, this is Manjusha Radhakrishnan. I'm the entertainment editor Gulf News. I'm here with
00:15
the review for the Bollywood film Jigra starring Alia Bhatt, Manoj Pawar and Vedang Raina.
00:22
This is a prison break drama along with being very emotionally charged. We have Alia Bhatt
00:27
who plays the doting sister to Vedang Raina. During their childhood they witness one of
00:32
the most traumatic episodes in their life where they see their father plunge to his
00:36
death and therefore it's upon Alia Bhatt's character Satya who becomes his mother, his
00:42
father. They are orphaned early and it becomes up to her to take care of her younger brother.
00:48
I mean she's almost like this mother to him and she takes it upon herself to protect him
00:53
from all odds. Even well into their adulthood when a benevolent rich uncle takes them under
00:58
their wings, a breadcrumbs them with money and affection, they know they are on their
01:04
own and a very bratty cousin of theirs, the uncle's son and Vedang Raina, they start a
01:10
business together. They end up somewhere in an island in Southeast Asia and they get into
01:16
trouble for drug trafficking. Then comes all the problems where Vedang Raina's character
01:21
takes the fall for the brat cousin of his. Now it's up to Alia Bhatt to save his brother.
01:29
She comes to the rescue. This is a movie that completely rests on Alia Bhatt's fragile shoulders
01:34
and she does a fantastic, phenomenal job of it. I mean hear me out here, when you look
01:39
at her, she may do karate, she claims she's a yellow belt but did not become a black belt
01:45
because she never plays by the rule. She's this fierce, sassy woman who her sole focus
01:51
in life is to be this fixer for her brother, is to just fix everybody's problems. She's
01:56
the person who looks at solutions and for her, her brother is her only perhaps tangible
02:04
affiliation in her life and the only relationship that she really cherishes. Therefore, she'll
02:09
go to great lengths to do it. So the movie rests on her shoulders and she does a phenomenal
02:13
job of carrying it through but the problem is the writing as well as the pace. I mean
02:18
Vedang Raina, I have to say, is also compared to Alia Bhatt. I mean you have to give it
02:23
to him. He tries but there's a vast difference of calibre between the two actors. He plays
02:28
the younger brother and the scenes in which in prison where he's wrongly imprisoned, it's
02:33
supposed to move you but it looks very clinical. Somewhere you realise that Vedang Raina does
02:38
not have the same heft as Alia Bhatt. This movie would have benefited from a tighter
02:44
edit and would have also, it just meanders a lot in the beginning. It's also about, it
02:50
also makes you want to suspend belief. I mean the first half of the movie is all about the
02:55
brother being wrongly imprisoned and sister coming to the rescue and then it's about how
03:00
they plot his escape. How these guys, this group of people including Alia Bhatt, led
03:06
by Alia Bhatt, just through sheer grit and some resources in terms of money, how they
03:11
penetrate a high security prison which we are told is impossible to get into. They're
03:17
very strict. It's a country with zero tolerance to drugs. They have a fantastic security system
03:23
and surveillance system in hand. How did a bunch of Indians manage to penetrate that
03:28
prison? You'll have to suspend belief and that's one of the biggest pitfalls. When it
03:32
came to the action, I thought Alia Bhatt did a great job but somehow her diminutive
03:37
stature kind of went against her. The action scenes didn't look very convincing although
03:42
I found it very raw and visceral. But her doing it, she just looked bruised and battered
03:48
in most cases. At that time your heart went out to her but you wondered how does she even,
03:54
how is she still standing? So these are moments where you had to suspend belief. The movie
03:59
would have benefited hugely if the plot twist towards the end was not so ludicrous. There's
04:05
also chemistry between Manoj Paha that I enjoyed. I mean the chemistry between Manoj, a seasoned
04:10
actor like Manoj and Alia Bhatt, I thought their chemistry was great. He happens to be
04:15
the father of one of the inmates who's lodged in the prison. Again, he wants his son to
04:22
somehow attain freedom and the only way out because they are now on death row. They are
04:29
tipped to be electrocuted in an electric chair and therefore they just want their loved ones
04:36
outside and they'll do anything to get them out. The premise is very similar to the movie
04:41
Midnight Express, Alan Parker's film. It'll remind you of that but it did not have the
04:45
same emotional rawness or the pull. I think this is a very wasted opportunity because
04:51
here you have an actor like Alia Bhatt who's so seasoned, who's so talented. I wish she
04:56
got a better movie. Vedang Raina, he has a long way to go. He is decent but there are
05:03
many emotionally charged sequences where you feel he does not carry the scenes through.
05:08
I have gone with 2.5 out of 5. For my full review, go to gulfnews.com.
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