“Jagga Jasoos” Movie Review

“Jagga Jasoos” is a perfect case study for what happens when a promising idea is met with sub-par execution. In case you were wondering, the results are not that great. The idea of a detective story set as a musical/thriller/comedy paying homage to works like Tintin, The Hardy Boys, Famous Five, etc. is interesting, and in the hands of a better crew, may have worked well. But “Jagga Jasoos” doesn’t work, mainly due to its confused and muddled tone, shoddy screenplay and overindulgent direction.

“Jagga Jasoos”, narrated mostly through music and as episodes from a comic book series of the same name, tells the story of Jagga (Ranbir Kapoor), an orphan boy who is shy and awkward on account of his stammering. He is befriended by a father figure he calls Tutti Futti (Saswata Chatterjee), who then suddenly leaves him and Jagga grows up alone with only yearly video cassettes he receives on his birthday. He has the mind of a detective, and helps solve cases including the one which brings him in contact with Shruti (Katrina Kaif). Events lead him on a quest to seek out Tutti Futti, and he is entangled in a world of militants, an illegal arms racket and a bunch of shady characters.

The biggest problem for me was that “Jagga Jasoos” can’t quite decide what it wants to be. Though the main aim is to be an over the top mad-cap comedy, it simultaneously tries to tackle ‘big’ themes like terrorism, the negative effects of illegal arms trade, activism, etc. with a level of gravity that rings untrue and ends up feeling shallow and nothing more than lip service. It doesn’t help that it does it with dialogues that have the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Even when it doesn’t, the movie doesn’t commit to the craziness and is a weird mix of being grounded in reality and being a fantasy, and as a viewer I couldn’t immerse myself fully into the experience, which is what a movie like this should be trying for. 

The makers try to capture the essence of detective stories like Tintin (the hairstyle of Jagga is an homage I’m guessing - either that or they were channeling Ace Ventura), but fail on account of trying to be crazy. Even with the exaggeration and the comedy, they seem to be trying too hard, and it all feels like a failed attempt at trying to be edgy and more often than not it misses the mark. Case in point – the stammering of Jagga lasts so long every damn time, it ended up being irritating instead of endearing.

The screenplay is very shoddy, and the makers try to hide it in the whole musical crazy vibe – once the novelty of the musical runs out (which is within the first ten minutes), it’s pretty evident that there isn’t much substance here and just a bunch of scenes strung together to form a movie. The amount of time invested in Jagga’s early cases, which covers pretty much all of the first half, seems bloated and overlong. Not that the second half is any better – the second half is a muddled mess that sees the protagonists going across the globe on a wild goose chase. It also doesn’t help that the editing is especially weak – unnecessary scenes and plot points get way too much screen time, and even scene transitions are jarring in their inconsistencies. Not sure if real world troubles including the multiple delays may have been a cause for this.

To focus on the positives, the camerawork is beautiful. It’s very clear that Anurag Basu and cinematographer Ravi Varman have an eye for capturing picturesque locations and beautiful shots. In a movie where the music is a key player, Pritam delivers the goods and the resultant soundtrack is infectious, catchy and actually manages to tie the movie together. The performances from the key players are also very good. Saswata Chatterjee is very good as the father figure. Both Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif are in good form. Katrina Kaif was a surprise to me, especially her comic timing. Ranbir Kapoor is perfect, and he makes Jagga a very likeable character with the right mix of innocence and smarts. His performance is definitely the highlight of the movie.

At the end of the day, Jagga Jasoos is let down by a sum of its parts. And at the helm of it, Anurag Basu’s direction is the biggest letdown here. It looks like after Barfi, he has tried to replicate the beautiful visuals plus quirky characters success formula – but this time, he seems to have not paid attention to anything else. From “Life.. in a Metro” to “Jagga Jasoos”, it looks like his ambitions have increased but his execution has definitely taken a dive. Which is too bad – “Jagga Jasoos” could have been something special, but ends feeling like a “galti se mistake”.