Jagga Jasoos Movie Review: The ‘Desi’ Tintin Is Here!

To be very honest, when I had seen the trailer of Jagga Jasoos, I was not much impressed with Anurag Basu’s latest collaboration with Ranbir Kapoor, but as the adage goes, ‘never judge a book by its cover’ and this proves right with regards to the desi version of Tintin.

Starring Ranbir Kapoor, Katrina Kaif, Saswata Chatterjee and Saurabh Shukla in lead roles, Jagga Jasoos is the story of an orphan with a speech impediment, who finds a father figure in the mysterious Bagchi (Chatterjee), who grooms and mentors him before leaving him in the care of a hostel and embarking on an enigmatic mission.

Jagga grows up into an extremely gifted amateur detective- something of a mix between Sherlock Holmes and Tintin and embarks on an adventure of his own with accident-prone reporter Shruti Sengupta (Katrina) to trace his father, who is on the trail of an arms dealer hell-bent on distributing weapons in every conflict zone.

Will Jagga manage to fight the bad guys and trace his father? Watch the film to find out…

Ranbir, who collaborated with Basu for the second time after Barfi!, carries the entire film on his shoulders with his boyish charm, his childlike spontaneity and the ease with which he plays the character. It’s evident that Ranbir has poured his heart and soul in this role and the lad succeeds in giving a stellar performance as the teenage detective with a razor-sharp mind but a treacherous tongue. Katrina Kaif is cute as hell, but doesn’t seem to put in much effort in the acting department. Nevertheless, the lass is easy on the eyes and so, am not complaining. Saurabh Shukla doesn’t get to do much while Saswata, who had sent a shiver up our spines in Kahaani, is dependably decent.

As for the film, if you have grown up reading Tintin comics and have enjoyed the exploits of popular sleuths like Sherlock Holmes and Feluda, you may enjoy this film thoroughly. Just like in Tintin comics, though the treatment of the film is quite childlike, the topics explored in the film are quite matured- the film deals with Naxals, arms-running, the Purulia arms drop case and a few other issues, which you won’t find in a kiddie flick. The challenge is making such a film is to take care not to let the narrative get scattered and Basu manages to do this quite admirably. Despite the various issues explored through the film, Jagga Jasoos is an engaging and entertaining fare.

One of the highlights of the film is its magical cinematography and Ravi Varman adds another feather to his cap with Jagga Jasoos, a film that is so colourful and vibrant that you can’t help falling in love with it.

So friends, if you still enjoy reading Tintin at this age, Jagga Jasoos should surely make your weekend.