Jolly LLB 3 Review: Akshay Kumar and Arshad Warsi take on big corporates in an overly long courtroom comedy
Two lawyers, both called Jolly, steal one another's clients until they are forced by one woman who is fighting against a corrupt corporation for her land. The inimitable judge Tripathi has for long, suffered their antics. But he knows, the two are honest. Will the widow get back her farmland?
Loosely based on events in the Bhatta Parsaul land grab case, where farmers were killed because they were an obstacle to ‘Development of the country’ and would not sacrifice their lands, the film Jolly LLB3 starts like the other films did, with comedy.
This time, there’s another ‘Jolly’ - Jagdish Mishra, from Kanpur (played by Akshay Kumar) - who’s competing for clients in the local court in Delhi. The original ‘Jolly’, Jagdish Tyagi (Arshad Warsi), is angry because the new ‘Jolly’ sends his junior Birbal to steal clients of the original Jolly.
The clash of these two hotheads is fun, with each trying to make the other look stupid. If you had to outrage, then the fact that Akshay Kumar’s Jolly calls his junior ‘Mote’ (Fatty), ‘gende’ (Hippo), and that a lad who cross-dresses just to cheat an old man should make you walk out of the film. A hundred years ago, when Asha Parekh called a large person ‘E Mote’ (Teesri Manzil) as she tried to buy a train ticket, it was called ‘comedy’. But I am sure we have come a long way from that kind of body shaming, no? And to imply that men who cross-dress are cheats is not funny at all. But we wait. Because farmers are waiting at the court, and Laxmi-ji sent them. It’s a great play of words because Akshay Kumar says, ‘I’m also waiting for Laxmi-ji!” implying he’s waiting for money. There is hope for the film yet.
Sure, the two Jollys face the judge we’ve met before, the one and only Sundar Lal Tripathi, who always seems to be on the verge of a heart attack. This time, Saurabh Shukla is given more of a role than just breaking the gavel in an attempt to maintain order in the court. There’s a love interest introduced - Chanchal Chautala - a cop whom he met on a phone dating app. It is fun to see the judge run to the court, drink whey protein and green tea, and still manage to stumble in love. But he’s sharp as ever in court.
After trying to pass the no money but half-eaten sugarcane, a few coins and a goat as a fee to one another, both the Jollys join forces and fight an evil corporation together. The problem with the film is that the evil guys are so evil, you can see the end of the film from a mile away. Alas, the end takes too long to come, you wish there were a fast-forward button to get to the final courtroom scene.
Where Boman Irani once defended the rich lad who drove his SUV over poor labourers, we have Ram Kapoor defending Gajraj Rao. Gajraj Rao is so good as the evil Khaitan, you will feel an involuntary shiver run down your spine when he calmly chooses to say that the farmer committed suicide because… Of course, that move alone shows how evil people can really be.
The chaos takes too long to come to a conclusion, and even though people who have been to a court know that judges don’t allow so much speechifying in court, this is a Hindi movie, and the dialogues are written for claps from the audience. The audience complies, because even though the speeches are necessary (everybody knows farmers are suffering, that the next gen thinks rice and other produce come from a supermarket, also that no matter who forms the government, there won’t be a solution that is helpful to all), and Akshay’s Jolly makes a valid point when he says we must teach our kids how tough it is to grow food right in our school curriculum, you know it’s a Bollywood solution. Because I am someone who has killed many plants at home by overwatering, I was glad that at least someone has tried to make a point.
Again, both wives (Huma Qureshi as well as Amrita Rao) have little to say except to be Jiminy Cricket to their Jolly husbands. And the plaintiff of the farmer suicide case, Seema Biswas, has not been given much to say. She speaks volumes in the end just with her tears. Instead of paying the background music guys money to fill every frame with comical or ‘impending disaster’ music, I wish they had paid an editor a little more to cut out all the needless scenes and made the point in an hour and a half. Watch it, but do have an anti-ageing regimen ready at home because, in reality, filmy justice also takes too long to be served.