Cast: Sunny Deol, Randeep Hooda, Regena Cassandrra, Saiyami Kher, Vineet Kumar Singh
Director: Gints Zilbalodis
Platform: On Netflix from April 10
Rating out of 5:★★
There’s a strange joy in watching a man so insanely furious that the mere loss of a snack can spark a continent-sized vendetta. JAAT, the latest testosterone injection masquerading as cinema, stars Sunny Deol, yes, that Sunny Deol, the legendary hero of yesteryear, as a man who loses his idli and, in turn, loses his mind.
Let us begin where all great epics do: in a tiffin. The premise, in a move so gloriously stupid it could be mistaken for satire, is that Deol’s character, imaginatively named Jaat, because of course he is, is denied his lunch by a gang of hooligans who interrupt his meal. In a moment of despair, the idli, round and soft, is knocked from his plate. And thus begins a carnage of John Wick proportions.
This is not a film interested in plot, plausibility, or the human condition. This is a film interested in punching. And shooting. And throwing men at concrete structures. If cinema is the art of movement through emotion, JAAT is movement through rage, aided by a stunt coordinator with the subtlety of a demolition crew and an editor who treats the footage for a Bollywood TikTok compilation.
Let’s talk about the editing, which seems to have been orchestrated by a man on a sugar bender, with fingers sticky on the Final Cut keyboard. Scenes transition not with grace but with shuddering aggression. Cuts land like punches, frequently interrupting the choreography just as it finds its rhythm. It is as if the film is trying to keep pace with itself and failing. You long for a moment of calm, of silence, of breath, but instead you’re battered into submission by flares, slow motion, fast motion, zooms and crash zooms!!
The fight sequences, which must collectively constitute half the runtime, are a curious beast. They are overcooked, overlong, and so densely choreographed they begin to feel like interpretive dance performed by sledgehammers. Each punch is accompanied by a sonic boom, each kick by a seismic ripple. Deol, at 66, moves with all the grace of a bulldozer on a pogo stick, but this is a film that isn’t particularly concerned with grace, it’s concerned with impact. You feel every blow, but not always in a good way. The first action scene is ludicrous fun. By the fifth, you’re reaching for aspirin.
Clocking in at nearly three hours, JAAT is about an hour longer than its premise can reasonably sustain. There is only so much idli-related vengeance the human psyche can process before ennui sets in. Around the two-hour mark, I began to feel as if I were being punished for some unknown crime, sentenced to watch Sunny Deol throttle identical-looking villains.
That said, JAAT is a beautiful film. Ravishing, even. It looks like money. Cinematographer Rishi Punjabi shoots carnage like a Dior commercial. Every frame is lit like a delicious food spread. Dust motes float through golden shafts of light. Blood sprays in elegant arcs. Hair moves in wind that seems to come from nowhere and everywhere. It’s all incredibly cinematic. If only the script had gotten the same attention.
The influence of South Indian action cinema is smeared thickly across the film. There are slo-mo hero reveals, devotional montages, over-saturated colour palettes, and villains with accents as inconsistent as their motivations. At times, it works, there’s a gleeful maximalism to the whole affair, a sense that subtlety has been actively hunted down and killed off-screen. But for every moment of stylised flair, there’s another of toe-curling melodrama. And while South Indian cinema often carries emotional weight under its spectacle, JAAT offers none. It borrows the style without the soul.
The action is, at moments, cathartic. There’s a visceral satisfaction to Deol’s growl, to the crunch of bone, the crackle of knuckles. But it lacks the balletic precision of John Wick, the film it so desperately wants to be. Where Wick’s rampage was triggered by the death of his dog, a quiet, tragic loss that opened the floodgates of grief, Deol starts his slaughter because he’s hangry. There’s no gravitas, no internal logic, no stakes beyond the frankly ludicrous. The parody teeters on the edge of sincerity, and never quite falls into the self-aware brilliance it could have been.
Still, to criticise JAAT for being mindless is perhaps to miss the point. It is not pretending to be Gangs of Wasseypur, or Article 15, or any other film interested in justice, society, or human complexity. It is, at its heart, a masala movie, a big, brash, bombastic love letter to carnage and bravado. Sunny Deol screams. Villains fly through walls. Patriotic speeches are delivered with the gravitas of Julius Caesar.
And so, as I wiped the metaphysical sweat from my brow, and stood blinking in the sun outside the cinema, I found myself strangely charmed. JAAT is too long, too loud, too overwrought, and too edited to within an inch of its life. But it’s also fun. Earnest fun.
If you suspend your disbelief, silence your inner logician, and accept that you are entering a temple of unreason, you might just enjoy the ride.
Two stars. One for the cinematography. One for the idli.
