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Judgementall Hai Kya Movie Review: The Kangana Ranaut and Rajkummar Rao starrer will make you leave your judgemental mind at home

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Nairita Mukherjee
Nairita MukherjeeJul 26, 2019 | 13:48

Judgementall Hai Kya Movie Review: The Kangana Ranaut and Rajkummar Rao starrer will make you leave your judgemental mind at home

Judgementall Hai Kya, Kangana Ranaut, Rajkummar Rao, Prakash Kovelamudi, Movie Review, Movie Ratings

Film: Judgementall Hai Kya

Cast: Kangana Ranaut, Rajkummar Rao

Director: Prakash Kovelamudi

Hindi; U/A; 1 hour, 57 minutes

Stars: 3 Stars

Psychedelic, edgy, quirky, with a neon burst of colours on screen, Prakash Kovelamudi’s Judgementall Hai Kya is quite a break from the monotone canvas Article 15 and Super 30 painted in brown the last few Fridays. It doesn’t, however, break away from the theme the two aforementioned films stuck to — presenting the audience with interesting, engaging cinema.

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Bobby Garewal (Kangana Ranaut) is a character the world will easily term as ‘crazy’ — and why not? After all, she chooses being sent to a mental asylum as punishment over a fine. But when you scratch the surface, you identify an unnerving desire in Bobby for normalcy and the comforts of familiarity. She chooses the asylum because she’s comfortable there.

A dubbing artiste by profession, she aspires to become an actor herself, but while she’s waiting in line — an endless wait, given her boyfriend manager (Hussain Dalal) is unable to crack it for her, and she seems to know that on some level — she lets certain traits of the characters she’s dubbing for rub on to her deliberately — victory in a scale she can control.

When she makes origami birds out of newspaper cuttings, she chooses the most gruesome crime reports to turn into something beautiful — seeing the bad in the world, but turning it around to something soothing, and thus, comforting to her.

Bobby, in short, is a fixer, who is always looking for a project. Finding flaws and decorating or transforming them is what keeps her going, what keeps her mind away from the trauma of growing up with an abusive father — the one thing she truly wanted to change, but couldn’t.

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But Keshav (Rajkummar Rao) and his wife Rima (Amrya Dastur) change all that for her.

Their perfect life and love story deeply affects her, for she knows something all of us fail to accept — koi itna normal kaise ho sakta hai? 

And that’s where Prakash Kovelamudi’s Judgementall Hai makes its point — loudly, clearly, beautifully.

In terms of performances, Kangana steals the show — that’s also because the film’s narrative gives her that scope smartly. She is in (almost) every scene, she is great, she does justice to the character, but you also sense that it is not always a fair playing field. Rajkummar, on the other hand, gets a role that is suave, macho even — unlike anything he’s essayed before — but with little room to really spread his wings. Kangana is taking up most of it.

But, there is absolute synergy between the two actors — they’re not fighting for what the other has and they don’t. They’re happy, content, satisfied and therefore, so vibrant on screen.

The film, however, lives up to the message it wants to deliver — that perfection is an illusion. Which is why, even with a tight, crisp first half, the second half ends up being a drag.

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Something that is absolutely unforgivable in a thriller-black comedy.

The music and the screenplay add to the cinematic experience without coming down upon it too heavily. Although there is no such thing as ‘too wacky’ or ‘too trippy,’ the film does overdo it a bit. Just a notch lower would have been nicer.

PS. A cameo by Jimmy Sheirgill is so common now that it neither excites, nor adds to the larger picture. Though his role was also quite different from what he usually gets to do, somebody just give him a full-fledged solo movie, yaar.

The last few weeks made me question a lot of things that I believed Kangana Ranaut stood for. But I choose not to be judgemental here. She was graceful as Bobby and I like this one way more than I did Manikarnika: The Queen Of Jhansi.

I'm going with 3 stars out of 5. 

Last updated: July 26, 2019 | 14:24
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