Jigra is an action entertainer headlined by Alia Bhatt. This film is also the first film she signed after the birth of her daughter Raha. This action drama has a strong underpinning of a brother-sister relationship, with Alia Bhatt and Archies-fame actor Vedang Raina playing orphan siblings. Jigra is written and directed by Vasan Bala. Vasan was the former assistant of director Anurag Kashyap. He later went on to helm the films Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota and Monica O My Darling. Vasan has co-written this film with Debashish Irengbam. Jigra is set in the fictional country of Hanshi Dao, which largely resembles Singapore.

What is it about?

Satyabhama (Alia Bhatt) and Ankur (Vedang Raina) are orphans who witness the traumatic suicide of their father as children. As adults, Satya works as a household manager for her wealthy relatives while Ankur studies to become an engineer. When Ankur and his cousin/boss’s son Kabir go to Hanshi Dao to pitch for a tech startup, Kabir gets caught with drugs. In Hanshi Dao, drug offenders are punished with a quick death sentence and there is no leniency offered. Kabir’s family helps him get out of this mess, but they manipulate Ankur into taking the fall. Ankur gets a death sentence in an electric chair and Satya rushes to Hanshi Dao to save her brother. How she saves her brother forms the rest of the story.

Performances

Jigra is Alia’s show all the way. This is also her first full-length action role. Satya is a dark, repressed and somewhat traumatised and violent character, who only wants to protect her brother and make sure he is safe. Alia nails the emotional arc of Satya perfectly and also aces the action sequences, most of which involve hand-to-hand combat.

Manoj Pahwa delivers an endearing and relatable performance as Bhatia, who helps Satya with her plans in Hanshi Dao. Actor and Chi La Sow-fame director Rahul Ravindran makes his Hindi debut with Jigra, playing the role of Muthu, an ex-police officer who wishes to get somebody out from the prison. He plays a jaded yet sensible character with restrained expressions and measured body language. Newcomer Vedang Raina looks great and sings well, but he needs to work a lot on his performance.

Technicalities

The production design of Jigra is loaded with inspired aesthetics and necessary realism. Most of Hanshi Dao has been recreated and shot in Mumbai, and it is commendable how well the recreation is, given the budget and original locations. There are some VFX portions in the film, involving the ocean and the prison, and they look so real that nobody will think it is VFX.

Alia Bhatt’s character Satya is entirely dressed in masculine outfits like oversized shirts, jeans and business suits. Fans who love seeing the actress in more glamorous garb might be disappointed. The music of the film, which includes a recreation of RD Burman’s famous son Ek Hazaaron Mein Meri Behna Hai, hit all the right notes, leaving the audience humming long after the end credits roll.

Thumbs up

Alia Bhatt
Story’s novelty factor
Production Values

Thumbs down

Pacing issues in screenplay
Niche subject
Predictable story

Analysis

Jigra has the 80s-90s template of a traditional, straightforward siblings emotion story. What makes it different is a female protagonist and a foreign backdrop. The story is full of details about Hanshi Dao, and it’s politics and legal system and why Satya must decide to break everything instead of following the rules laid down by the system.

While the emotional factors of the film will keep everyone connected, these Hanshi Dao details may interest some deeply while alienating others. The film is both mainstream and niche at the same time.

Jigra is mostly an events-based film but the problem is we know how the film is going to end so the events become predictable after a point. Instead of taking us only through the events, Jigra should have been more of a character drama.

Vasan Bala is definitely an talented and interesting director and it is good to see his work get mainstream attention. The film (at 2hrs 35 mins) feels a bit too long due to its pacing and some of its creative calls.

This could have been worked around, in order to give a racy, edge-of-the-seat experience to the audience, instead of a mellow, meditative one. In short, Jigra reminds the audience that it is an emotional story and an action story separately but not together.

Verdict – A Fighter With Weak Drama

Rating: 2/5

Related

Tags Jigra

NR

Runtime: 1 Hr and 31 Minutes

Production Companies: Foregone Film PSC, Fit Via Vi Film Productions, Lucky 13 Productions, Ottocento Films, SIPUR, Vested Interest

Distributor: Kino Lorber

Director: Paul Schrader

Writer: Paul Schrader

Cast: Richard Gere, Jacob Elordi, Uma Thurman, Victoria Hill, Michael Imperioli, Penelope Mitchell, Kristine Froseth

Release Date: December 6, 2024

A still from ‘Black’
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Tamil cinema’s tryst with high-concept thrillers is as rare as the occurrence of the Supermoon in Black — the new Jiiva and Priya Bhavani Shankar-starrer. The mind-bending thriller takes an intriguing concept and with able performers at the core, does a neat job of emulating the thrilling moments of Coherence, the 2013 Hollywood film on which it’s based.

In Black, Jiiva and Priya play Vasanth and Aranya, a couple who decide to chill at their newly constructed row-house villa within a gated community. But before the duo reaches the location where most of the film unfolds, we are told how back in 1964, a time-based strange occurrence happened during a supermoon. Unsurprisingly, the incomprehensible event occurs again and with no one to help, Vasanth and Aranya have to fight through what seems to defy the very law of time and physics as we know it.

With just two actors populating the majority of runtime, and almost the whole story evolving within the confines of a house in a gated community, the trump card of Black is how intriguing it is from start to finish. With scenes looping multiple times and considering the repeated sequences will have more scenes than what was shown the first time around, Black needed a strong technical team and debutant director KG Balasubramani pulls it off quite neatly along with cinematographer Gokul Benoy and editor Philomin Raj. The well-written screenplay neatly unfurls the questions in our minds even as the unravelling could have benefitted from better spacing.

After a series of shots establishing the personalities of Vasanth and Aranya, the relationship the couple shares and two annoying, unmerited songs, Black shifts to top gear the moment the couple occupy their new house. The film slowly amps up the thrills as the story progresses and despite having only two primary characters (unlike its source material), Black manages to keep us at the edge of our seats for the most part.

While the first half unravels at a break-neck speed, it’s in the second half where the shortcomings come in full view. There’s a scene where Vasanth, out of frustration, leaves his house dishevelled only for cops to think it has something to do with his missing wife. Though it might have felt like an organic scene while writing, it’s anything but that visually. The film’s most interesting aspect is the effect of the supermoon and how it casts a pitch-black force field within which our protagonists get trapped. Akin to a black hole, this field is so powerful that even light can’t reflect and acts as a portal to different timelines.

A still from ‘Black’
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

But the explanation to this comes at the fag end of the film and while it can be brushed aside as a writing choice, this results in a buttload of exposition with terms like super-positioning and parallel reality to urban legends like the Bermuda triangle and thought experiments like Schrödinger’s cat thrown at us. While it might not hinder the experience of those accustomed to films on time-travel paradoxes, the references certainly overstay their welcome without much explanation to those alien to these concepts.

What makes it easy to look past these minor flaws, apart from the strong technical team, is the performance of the lead cast. While Jiiva makes a splendid comeback after a string of misses with a role that feels tailor-made for him, Priya scores in an equally important role as someone who asks the right questions to decipher the happenings to the audience without succumbing to the generic thriller trope of being the damsel in distress.

Despite reminding us of a slew of films and series on similar lines, Black does justice to the genre without taking its viewers for granted and spoon-feeding information. While the lack of a simplified explanation might be a common criticism, that’s what makes Black — along with titles like the Kannada film Blink which came out this year — stand apart from other films that lose their essence by challenging the audience’s intellect. A gripping screenplay, able performers and a strong technical crew, accentuate this well-written thriller; and Black manages to surpass its shortcomings and leaves us wishing we don’t have to wait for another supermoon for such flicks.

Black is currently running in theatres