Jai Gangaajal Hindi Movie Review

Prakash Jha's love affair with socially relevant themes showing fight against the system and injustice metted out to the common man in the society continues. In Jai Gangaajal instead of a male protagonist battling against the social evils, we have a female lead in the form of Priyanka Chopra as a brave police officer pitted against corrupt politicians, land mafia and irresponsible people within her department itself.
Though this is a sequel to Jha's Ajay Devgan starrer Gangaajal, Jai Gangaajal has no connection whatsoever with the prequel and nothing has been borrowed from the first film. But the common factor in both these films is nothing new to us if you are following the director's previous flicks.
Intentions are good but what happens when the same thing is repeated. The result is boredom. Jai Gangaajal can rightly be called as an old wine served in a new bottle. Yes there is nothing fresh in treatment and execution. Everything is predictable and at two hours and thirty eight minutes, it almost makes a tiring experience once the end credits start rolling down.
Abha Mathur is the newly appointed SP of Bankipur where MLA Babloo Pandey and his goon brother Dabloo Pandey are ruling the roost looting farmers by grabbing their land. They are helped by 'Circle Babu' Bhola Nath Singh in their crimes and nefarious dealings. Jai Gangaajal pits Abha face to face with these politicians, goons and tainted cops.
I am not saying the film is an unwatchable stuff with a very bad and weak screenplay. Jai Gangaajal has its moments and these moments are just scattered here and there without any continuity thereby making it a partly engaging movie from the director who is famous for telling political stories from local Bihar.
Hailing from this state, he is in his comfort zone here and has tried to cover many aspects in our political system that affects common people. So we have things like corruption, corrupt politicians and police officers, land grabbing, farmer suicides, atrocities against women and the tainted system finding a place in the narrative at one stage or the other.
PJ is a master when it comes to these types of stories. Possessing good knowledge of the current affairs of Bihar politics and the system prevailing over there, he has come up with something that has not lost its relevance but have only gained more importance in the present day life. Powerful and hardhitting dialogues are the trademark of this director and situation is no different in Jai Gangaajal too.
Priyanka Chopra has done the best that she could do in the role of a police officer. A new role for the actress, she was found wanting on the action front with her fights lacking the knockout punch.
Prakash Jha enter into the acting terrain perhaps for the first time taking a new route apart from direction. He was not able to achieve full success as an actor but was good in parts especially towards the latter stages of the film.
Manav Kaul and Ninad Kamat as Pandey brothers were upto the task and delivered clean acts in front of the camera making their characters look cruel on screen. Murali Sharma as the henchman of Babloo was also notable with his presence though it was a small one.
If one is to look the film from the angle of a common man's perspective, there are many things that from an awareness point of view needs our attention, thought and involvement. But in films if there is repetition of the same thing again and again, the engaging likeness factor for a film is bound to be literally killed due to overdose. At best, Jai Gangaajal is an average film and the rating I am going to give is two and a half out of five.
Rating - 2.5 / 5