In a crucial scene in Jai Gangaajal, the townspeople kill three men and hang the bodies on a tree. When a policeman tries to stop the madding crowd from this act, they protest and chant, “suicide, suicide”. Weirdly, the biggest of the three men was killed by a 12-year old child. Revenge, they said.
Prakash Jha’s Jai Gangaajal, starring Priyanka Chopra, is a movie with a profoundly uncomplicated and profoundly disturbing politics. An eye for an eye. Unlike his previous films, Rajneeti, Gangaajal and Damul, it is neither intelligent nor well-written. There are no prizes for guessing the setting: once again, a small town in the Hindi heartland. This time it’s Madhya Pradesh.
Jha wants to be realistic about the region. Farmer suicides, violence, corruption, and crimes against women; he inks in all these issues. But he can’t offer a practical solution. So, once again, he advocates violence as the most effective tool against every social evil.
*****
Priyanka Chopra is Jha’s resident Furiosa. The lone woman who wants to save Bankipur from evil. Jha plays her wingman. Eventually, it’s the latter who steals the show.
Every character in Jai Gangaajal is a caricature. The politicians are evil. The goons who work for them are evil. The police have their heart in the right place. The women are gutsy and idealistic. Corporates are vultures. The Aam Aadmi (the common people) are collectively good. The narrative thrives on dialogue: punchy quips, conversations, and the occasional sermon.
The town of Jai Gangaajal is masculinist territory. An evil legislator and his brother are forcing hapless farmers to sell their agricultural land to a corporate giant, the Samanta Group. Anyone who protests or questions them is murdered and hanged. It has become such a common practice, that people even have a name for it: ‘murder-suicide’.
In this dire situation, a woman enters. For police commissioner Abha Mathur (Priyanka Chopra), idealism isn’t just a word. Mathur’s primary task is to sanitise her department, and win the townspeople’s confidence.
*****
With a woman as the protagonist, one would imagine that Jai Gangaajal is a feminist film. Her subordinates address her as ‘madam sir’ or just ‘sir’. The film doesn’t fuss over her appearance. She’s mostly in uniform or a plain black kurta (although the over-the-top nude makeup is strikingly visible).
But Chopra has little to accomplish in this poorly written role. Thrashing a sexual molester and his accomplices in the middle of a busy market. Delivering punchy dialogues from time to time. And that’s it. She is usually the last person to arrive at crime scenes. She makes promises, but can’t keep a single one of them. She trusts the wrong people. In fact, Jha uses her presence as a propeller of change, and little else.
*****
Meanwhile, Jha’s BN Singh outshines everything else in the movie. If you set Jai Gangaajal on fire, Singh would be the only one who escapes unhurt. He begins as Chopra’s assistant. Soon enough, he takes charge. Jha has the best emotional scenes, and the plum ‘mass’ scenes.
Recommended
In the initial sequence, Singh is a political stooge. He undergoes a change of heart after a scene involving some ‘khakhi talk’. The film doesn’t spend much time explaining what transforms Singh into a guardian angel. It’s supposedly unimportant. Jha is certainly a great performer. But the actor in him deserved a better debut movie.
*****
Jai Gangaajal is neither a feminist film, nor a progressive one. A film espousing retaliatory politics cannot be either. Setting aside misleading promos featuring Chopra, this is ultimately a mediocre film with a solid performance by its real protagonist: Prakash Jha.
*****
The Jai Gangaajal review is a Silverscreen original article. It was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the movie. Silverscreen.in and its writers do not have any commercial relationship with movies that are reviewed on the site.