Jaat Review – A Jaat / Farmer / Army Man from the North sets out to save a bunch of villages in coastal Andhra Pradesh from a criminal who is as ruthless and more as they come – a formula that never fails especially when one of the successful south directors holds the megaphone – but is there more to the narrative than we it appears to be – Read the Review by The Lazy Reviewer
Jaat has Sunny Deol in the lead — as a Jaat, of course (a collective term for the farmer community from Northwestern India) — who, by chance, arrives in Prakasam district in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.
And then there’s the antagonist Ranatunga – a Sri Lankan Tamil, a notorious criminal who is commissioned to empty an entire stretch of 15 villages from the coastal belt. The reason — as it is in every other film — is because radioactive material is discovered there by the bad guys. This nefarious deal happens in ‘Davos’, and from then on he begins unleashing his reign of terror while the police look the other way.
This news reaches the President of India, and she sends Satya Murthy (Jagapathi Babu) to get to the bottom of it all. Even as he is on his way, the Jaat, begins his action by demanding an apology from a gang member who spills his idli. The hungry and angry Jaat then moves from one fight sequence to another until he reaches the man that everyone fears — Ranatunga.
This ruthless guy, who takes pride in beheading people, has a Sri Lankan backstory ( he is an expelled Jaffna tiger Muthuvel Karikalan) before he arrives on Indian soil with his brothers. And after a few years, he brings his family too — a Tamil speaking mother who is evil no less, and a wife (Regina Cassandra), who fights and assists her husband in beheading villagers (who conveniently speak Hindi for practical purposes) when she is not stripping women police officers naked. And in his free time, this Ranatunga goes about threatening people while sitting in a church.
And it is up to Sunny Deol as the North Indian superhero of a man, with his Dhai Kilo Arms, who arrives in a train laden with devotees of Lord Ram, to save the villagers, the soil (mitti / maa), and especially the hapless women (never mind they are the police), who are, according to him, his sisters.
Jaat is North macho meets South masala — directed by South director Gopichand Malineni, who has packed it with ample elevations (as we say down South) and endless backstories that the maverick Navin Nooli barely manages to make some sense of with his slick editing. There is a lot of bloodshed, unending violence, and death that knows no bounds — sparing no one, not even women and children. This amply justifies the means to an end when justice is finally served — albeit violently.
And CBI officer Satya Murthy, when he finally arrives after 10 hours, sees the war already fought and won — by a farmer and an army man. Flashback to Kargil, Surgical Strike, Balakot, and so on — when this Jaat was the army man – the hero that vanquished the enemy.
Despite all the excesses, Jaat, when released in theatre managed to become a hit and garnered over ₹60 crore in collections. Now it’s streaming in multiple languages on Netflix. If you watch the film and are one of those who think the film is trying to say more than what what it appears to be saying just like this review – then you are not alone.
Also Read: Good Bad Ugly – Thala’s Film For the Fans Made By the Fans
Jaat Review by The Lazy Reviewer | Fridaywall Film Reviews | Fridaywall Magazine | Best Digital Magazine in Hyderabad
