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8/10
“How rare it has become for Bollywood to churn out original scripts!” – this concern gets neatly checked off when Kanika Dhillon is on board as the writer. She in her latest ‘Judgementall Hai Kya’, talks about the spectrum of the human behavior that the society tags as “normal”, especially for a woman who treads the unconventional “loud” path to convey her point.
Bobby (Kangana) is a dubbing artist who resists men post a childhood trauma, until she crosses paths with Keshav (Rajkummar) and gets obsessed with him. Eventually, both find themselves being suspected for a ‘Who did it?’ murder mystery, which makes for rest of the crazy thrilling narrative. The way it has been written has successfully managed to blur the lines between the normal vs abnormal actions and moods of a person, while subtly tagging the person as judgmental who calls an unconventional loud soul as “mental”.
The movie boasts of several lunatic moments in the first half, like a man on road everyday holding signboards with different messages, acting as narrator. To sum up the big picture, the unanticipated Ramayana references are injected in the second half. Instantly, these Ramayana references make way for a huge hangover of ‘Tamasha’ (2015), but the latter narrated them poetically. Here, they are depicted across the backdrop of London, which feels a huge leap of faith of an attempt by the director Prakash Kovelamudi. Working only in parts, these perpetually seem uninvited and get the movie dragging. This drag is a sharp contrast to his style of narration in the first half – it absorbed me from the word go, and there is no looking back once you set off on this edgy and quirky rollercoaster of a movie.
Despite these evident flaws, it’s the first – rate performances by the leads that get ‘Judgementall Hai Kya’ sailing throughout and eventually emerge triumphant. Particularly, this holds true for Kangana Ranaut’s natural portrayal of Bobby. Initially her act got me slightly reminiscing of Parineeti from ‘Hasee Toh Phasee’ (2014), but she soon holds her own amidst the pacy storytelling. The movie feat. sequences of how Bobby seamlessly gets into the skin of the character she professionally dubs for – I say the same for the actor Kangana too. Her freaking out seems real, the laughs and chills are successfully generated when intended by her. Just besides her part’s mindspace, nothing in her act is all over the place. Her climax walk is the walk of a true Queen, with all the emotions and creatures that dwell in her mind, looking like a Bollywood’s ode to ‘Inside Out’ (2015).
Proudly showcasing his ala – chameleon switching between extreme expressions just another time, Rajkummar Rao equally complements the fire of his opposite lead, with his apparently effortless act. Hussain Dalal gets the best dialogues and ensures a laugh riot in the scenes he features. Jimmy Shergill is his usual prodigy while again playing the nice guy, Amyra Dastur and Amrita Puri do their parts well as required. A true charmer here is the cinematographer Pankaj Kumar, as he captures the outside and inside world of Bobby with sheer brilliance: be it the neon lightning in a small bedroom to a somewhat grand escapism climax sequence on a London street. Complementing these amusing visuals is a suitable background score and an unappealing soundtrack. I loved the usage of RD Burman’s song “Duniya mein logon ko” in the background. The awaited ‘Wakhra Song’ rolls in the end credits feat. both our leads, irrespective of who survives in the narrative.
‘Judgementall Hai Kya’ could’ve easily been shorter than its runtime of over 115 minutes, had the few purposeless sequences been orderly cut from the second half. As the savior, the witty writing is topped off with insane performances by the entire cast and a dreamy cinematography, which creates lasting moments of madness and humor in this gritty dark comedy – though not everytime. The purpose of several scenes in second is hard to comprehend, just like the purpose of an extra ‘l’ in ‘Judgementall’ in the movie’s title.
Watch its Trailer here :Â Judgementall Hai Kya (2019) Trailer – YouTube
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Bro, very well written review ??