‘Jagga Jasoos’ movie review: Ranbir-Katrina’s musical voyage to happiness will win you over

Directed By: Anurag Basu
Produced By: Anurag Basu, Ranbir Kapoor, Siddharth Roy Kapoor
Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Katrina Kaif, Saurabh Shukla, Rajatava Dutta, Saswata Chatterjee
Duration: 2 hours 42 minutes
Bollywood Bubble Rating: 3.5/5

One lonely child with hidden forlornness inside. A man with discreet missions. Destiny brings them in proximity and magic happens! Two roving hearts find a locale, bond amid comfort, affection and love. Just then, the squall arrives. What next? A journey that begins from inadequacy, astray of happiness and lonesomeness and ends in contentment; so much that we want to believe in miracles once more.

Anurag Basu, whose repertoire contains slice-of-life films like ‘Barfi’ and ‘Life In A Metro’, has voyaged to carefully knit a story crammed with emotions of right shades. But most importantly, ‘Jagga Jasoos’ is so humane in every approach it makes!

Jagga (Ranbir Kapoor), having the misfortune to lose his parents just after his birth, is brought up by the people of a hospital. Jovial and selfless, the kid is the apple of everyone’s eyes. As I look at Jagga, I perceive how unornamented yet beautiful childhood can really be, and how faulty a childhood kids actually live these days. One shiny morning, Jagga finds a man (Saswata Chatterjee) jumping off a train. Bleeding and injured, he is rescued and taken to the hospital by Jagga. How beautiful destiny’s strokes can be, at times! Homeless so far, Jagga finds a father and comes to stay with Badal Bagchi. But happiness isn’t meant to stay forever. One fine day, with his luggage, a bunch of unanswered questions and eyes full of tears, Jagga is left at a boarding school at Ukhrul, Manipur. The father never comes back. However, every year on his birthday, he receives a video cassette from his father, from different corners of the world.

As he grows up to be a helpful, everyone’s favourite kind of guy, Jagga has learnt to keep his loneliness in secrecy. One year, even the video cassette doesn’t come. Does this mean his father is no more? It is then that a son, left desperate with questions of many years, sets off to find his father. Meanwhile, he comes across Shruti Sengupta (Katrina Kaif), a journalist from Calcutta who has come to Manipur to write about an illegal arm exchange racket that operates worldwide.

The story be traced back to Purulia, West Bengal. One morning, the sky is occupied by mysterious aircrafts that drop boxes of guns and disappear. How strange, none of the radars of Indian intelligence ever traces these aircrafts! Smelling a tremendous conspiracy, Badal Bagchi solely takes up the mission of exposing the truth. The events that unfold next, change everyone’s lives.

‘Jagga Jasoos’ is not what I thought, or what anyone thought in fact. It is far from being just a children’s film. It takes forward a story of global crisis and how it often takes just a man with unmatched courage to change the scenario. But at the same time, it is a heartfelt narration of fatherhood, beyond associations of blood.

To say that it is a musical film would be an understatement. Thanks to Amitabh Bhattacharya, the lyrics have become the predominant element of expression. Bhattacharya is sharp, straight and effective as he just perfectly pens every word. A similarly commendable journey has been done by Pritam. Ravi Varman’s cinematography is so exquisite, I almost wanted to creep inside the screen at times. If nothing else, ‘Jagga Jasoos’ is a treat to just lend your eyes and ears to. Varman’s work is rightly complemented by Akiv Ali’s editing.

But performance takes the cake here. Ranbir Kapoor proves why he can be banked upon with almost any role. The stammering but musical, handsome guy with twinkling eyes and a half-smile on his tight lipped face will win you over. We cherished Katrina Kaif too, minus her accent which we think will never go away now. But our takeaway from the film is Saswata Chatterjee. We smiled through the sobs as we saw the father and son bonding through the smallest moments and our heart wailed as the troubled father left his child behind. Apart from them, Saurabh Shukla and Rajatava Dutta have done commendable jobs in a brief time.

Anurag Basu perfectly knows that right manner of storytelling can stir the deepest of emotions. He not only has crafted an impressive story with right amount of emotions, but has also shown enough vision in whatever visual representations he has used. During the second part, however, the film tends to go slower. An extended process of Jagga finding his father seems to lose its pace and might find a few takers. A few cinematic liberties do seem a bit absurd. But we are ready to forgive!

Definitely watch if you’re looking for a fantasy ride! But, this one is not your cup of tea if you’re looking for a dose of pure entertainment.

P.S. There’s a very special and very brief cameo and you can’t even guess who it is!

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