Courtroom dramas can be boring; and why not, when one would imagine them as prolonged, twisted legal back-and-forth over the obvious backdrop of social satire. "Jolly LLB 2" does all of that though thankfully, it articulately comes wrapped in a masala, 'satirical-comedy'.
What makes this film relatable is the very presence of those 'next- door characters'. The titular "Jolly LLB" – Jagdeesh Mishra (Akshay Kumar) – is an ambitious attaché to a reputed senior lawyer in the Lucknow- bench High Court. Right from the opening sequence – where Jolly slyly recovers his pay for delivering mass-cheating in a suburban school English exam - he's immediately taken as a mighty resourceful guy. Crafty and opportunist – be it a long-standing case of someone's lost identity or amassing exorbitant funds for his chamber space, Jolly fixes it to his own pace and will.
Though, his ingenuity falls short to save a young-widow (Sayani Gupta, "Margarita, with a Straw", "Fan") from taking her life, who had been slogging for months after her husband's fake encounter. Burning with remorse and loaded with his unrefined wisdom and legal acumen, he's at loggerheads with the nemises of 'law' and 'order' – ruthless, powerful Lawyer Mathur (Annu Kapoor, "Vicky Donor") and a bent-cop Singh (Kumud Mishra, "Rockstar"). Jolly takes them the whole nine-yards, albeit with some crude-fireworks of debate with comical by-products in the court of an omniscient-seeming, "Teddy Bear" of a judge Tripathy (Saurabh Shukla, "Jolly LLB", "Barfi!"). What follows, is the not so obvious bridging of gap between diametrically opposites – 'truth and justice' which takes its viewers to the bylanes of the deep-rooted nexus of crime.
To many, it may seem a bit unwittingly twisted with loose edits; however, its remarkably well-paced and doesn't waste any time to jump on events. Writer-Director Subhas Kapoor ("Phas Gaye Re Obama", "Jolly LLB") has carefully and quite smartly re-written the sequel, with some well incorporated news-stories from his political-journalism days. Though, the film is not all brilliance - its score and songs could have been done without, with the minute exception of "Bawra Mann"; also, the same goes for unnecessary sub-plots scenes.
Amongst the casting, perhaps Huma Qureshi ("Gangs of Wasseypur") is disappointingly under-written; though Annu Kapoor, Mishra and relatively fresh Sayani are raging in their leagues even alongside the star Akshay, who's likably well-casted into a semi-boorish, but well-hearted man. Despite all, the scene-stealer is Saurabh Shukla who delivers yet again, a "par-normal" performance with just the right persona of humour and drama. The only-character continued from the prequel, he received an actual applause on one of Judge' wise-cracks - a reminder of his National Award recipient role.
All said and done, the film could be enjoyed in-moderation who may have or haven't seen the prequel; and quite surely, even the international viewers may end up having a "Jolly" good time!
Going with 7/10, for a fair-watch!
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