One Word which describes the film- Stereotypical
Best Dialogues -
Akshay Kumar- "Beta, jo vakil paise wapis kar de naa wo vakil nahi hota."
Sourabh Shukla- "Bhare court ke andar thappad maar diya inko, ab kya RDX laga dega inke neeche."
Annu Kapoor- "Pepsi aur Pramod apna formula batate nahi."
Genre - Court Room Drama
Music- Manj Music, Meet Bros
Producer- Fox Star Studios
Story & Direction- Subhash Kapoor
Cast - Akshay Kumar, Sourabh Shukla, Annu Kapoor, Huma Qureshi, Kumud Mishra
Budget- 30 Crores excluding Akshay Kumar's remuneration
Jolly LLB was a sleeper hit of 2013 where Arshad Warsi played the titular role of Jolly. The satirical court room drama was loved by all and it also won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi.
In 2016 when the sequel of Jolly LLB was announced, Arshad Warsi was asked why he was not doing the film. Arshad said that Fox Star Studios needed a bigger star, so they chose Akshay.
“It makes it easier for marketing and to have a hit. With me, you have to make a good film, so that is the problem. You can make money with me only if it’s a very good film. If you have a bigger star, then even if the film is not that good, you still manage to cover the money so risk factor from the producer’s point of view is less,” he added.
Guess Arshad Warsi knew what the sequel would be like even before the film was made. The film follows the same story line of its predecessor where a corrupt advocate becomes a responsible person when some events shake his soul. The film uses all the gimmicks to make it into a blockbuster even adding a Holi song and some dialogues about soldiers fighting at the border to awake the feeling of patriotism inside you.
The first-half is slow where we see different aspects of Jolly’s life and his equations with his father, employer and wife. The story tries to take a serious turn but again it's followed by some light events as if the director can't decide the direction where he wants his film to go.
Post interval the film is shot mostly in the court like the other two hit films of 2016 Rustom and Pink.
We have some good scenes between the judge and the two advocates. But soon we get to see a scene where the lawyer calls the judge a 'Tuglaq' and then sits on a dharna, which is followed by the judge himself sitting on a dharna, when the others are busy sleeping in the court. This scene was so ridiculous that we wondered what kind of satire was this.
Akshay Kumar is more believable in the comedy scenes than in the courtroom scenes where he's trying to question the witnesses.
Huma Qureshi just sleep walks throughout the film and afterwards you wouldn't remember even one scene where she has left her mark.
Saurabh Shukla as the judge who recently had a by-pass surgery is the best thing about the film. He is an Alia Bhatt fan even saying that 'Alia is Mahesh Bhatt's best contribution to Bollywood after Saaransh. His dialogues are witty, often adding pace to a slow scene.
Annu Kapoor as the lawyer of the corrupt cop, Kumud Mishra is good and gets to say powerful dialogues. Sometimes his arguments are silly but guess that must happen too in real court cases.
In between the commercial film there are few scenes which touch your heart like when a victim confronts the errant Jolly in front of his wife and father, or when Jolly’s mentor comes to his rescue, or when Jolly sells his cabin just to get some evidence but they are so few that they stop the film from becoming a masterpiece.
The film was released in 3600 screens, thus becoming Akshay's biggest release till date and managed to earn 13 Crores on Friday.
The critics have given it 3.5 to 4 stars even when the film is just average proving that if you have good terms with the star then being politically correct is more important than being right.
In a line, though the film tells you now and then that "Muskuraiye, Aap Lucknow mein hain," there are very few scenes which will actually warm your heart or make you clap for the protagonist.
Time pass
