Jilla

My review: Jilla

After a brief detour Vijay is back to his comfort zone in his latest movie “Jilla”, Written and directed by Nesan. Thing with Vijay is that he has incomparable charisma among his peers as a result of which even the most mediocre of his movies manage to stay afloat. Hardly any of his movies get washed-out at the box-office how ordinary the movie may be (with the exception of “Sura”). That he has a huge reception from the family audience in addition to his legion of fans is the main reason for it. Almost every household must have at least one person (especially kids) who likes him which is the main factor for his movies traditionally doing well with the family audience which his contemporaries could only dream of. But the problem with “Jilla” is that that precious constituency of Vijay would take a beating because of its repulsive objectification of its female lead and b-grade disgusting comedies.

Nesan seems to have started this project on a blank slate with the hope of relying on Vijay’s charisma and Mohanlal’s screen presence adding scenes from innumerable Telugu movies all along. Hence movie goes on and on endlessly low on purpose. What could have been a riveting drama of cat and mouse game between the son and father gets watered down into a highly irritating and repugnant mass masala, the type of movies which resulted in the series of below-average and average returns for Vijay at the box-office not so long ago. 

Vijay himself seems to be a bit less interested than his regular chirpy self. He seems to be going through the motion for the most parts. Mohanlal is good and brings in his huge wealth of experience to give his poorly written role some credibility. If not for Vijay and Mohanlal this movie would have surly fell by the way side unnoticed. Kajal Agarwal has just two songs, three scenes and four lines to mouth in this movie. Rest of the movie she is just about makes the numbers among the background crowd.

One of the movie’s few consolations is its music. Iman is in such a terrific form off-late which gets reflected on screen. “Kandangi” and “Verasa pogaile” are signature Iman melodies. His background score is also good. Movie is technically very well made. Each frame is filled with colour. The lighting in some of the scenes and the camera work in the action sequences are praise worthy. Ganesh Rajavelu is the cinematographer.

In the end one could only feel sorry for Nesan who has wasted such a wonderful opportunity. Not that everyone could dream of having the backing of one of the leading producers of south India and two of the leading stars of south India yet Nesan could not capitalize on the same.

On the whole, “Jilla” is a beaten to bushes mass masala entertainer that could work only in Telugu movie Industry.

Bottomline: Eagerly awaiting Vijay’s next with A.R.Murugadoss.

2/5