Jigarthanda Double X( Tamil , Netflix)
Starring Raghava Lawrence, S. J. Suryah,Nimisha Sajayan
Written & Directed by Karthik Subbaraj
Rating: * ½
Rohit Shetty’s films are often described as critics-proof, which is to say, no matter what critics say audiences love his cinema. In that sense, Karthik Subbaraj is the Rohit Shetty of Tamil cinema. Except for that fact that Shetty’s films blow up cars.Subbaraj blows up all rationale to serve up the most unpalatable and, dare I say, khichdi dish since Man(and Woman) invited food and cinema.
Even a day after sitting dutifully through Jigarthanda Double X(calling itself the ‘spiritual sequel’ to the 2014 film Jigarthanda) I am unable to exorcize my mind of the experience. Was it a beast of indeterminate breed stalking through the screen in search of prey? Was it a satire on classic cinema? I ask the latter, because one of the film’s two anti(que)heroes calls himself Ray Dasan, a disciple of Satyajit Ray and claims to have assisted Ray on his debut film Pather Panchali.
This is supposed to be a joke on classics of our cinema. I am sure Ray would have died laughing. Me? I am not sure I get the joke. I am not even sure I get what the film is trying to say. There is Allyus Caesar(named so weirdly by Clint Eastwood),played Raghava Lawrence, the savage hero of the jungles who claims Clint Eastwood came to shoot a film in those part.
Eastwood would be happy to know about his deeprooted connection to Tamil cinema, though I am not sure he would understand what this homage to nothing,is actually trying to say.If at all it is trying to say anything, then I must educate myself better to immerse in the splash of gaudy swirling hurtling colours and fights which are choreographed like village carnivals with much noise and very little restrain.
Jigarthanda Double X is like a steamroller out of control. It ends up demolishing all the wrong sacred cows of mainstream cinema to reconstruct a new onscreen language which is even worse than the status quo.
The screenplay(written by Subbaraj) is a mélange of haphazard ideas on cinema and crime brought together in mashup that crushes all claims to coherence. From what I gather the writer-director’s motto for mowing into the precincts of a motionpicture is to create disembodied images of tribal violence and savage merriment.
Early in the disjointed plot, a brutal cop Rathna Kumar(Naveen Chandra) picks out a hardcore criminal from prison Kirubakaran(S J Suriya) to pose as a filmmaker and nab the jungle crimelord Caesar who,as mentioned earlier, is a Eastwood fan. Rathna has a brother(Shine Tom Chacko, underused by a plot that seems to write itself out under a tantric spell) who is a star being deprecated by a rival star.
Incoherence is the least of the problems in this insubordinate plot. The dialogues are filled with the most politically inappropriate jibes and digs, including one especially toxic comment on nurturing the first darkskinned pan-India superstar.
Through the mist of massacre and megalomania Subbaraj , drunk on the power of his past successes, constructs a movie which merges savagery with satire and crime and cinema. I am not sure the brackish brew works either as cinema or its satirized representation. The Clint Eastwood references are neither here nor there, just pinned into a painfully congealed part. The actors struggle to accommodate some sobriety into their broadly satirical roles. It is sad to see an actress of Nimisha Sajayan’s caliber struggling to make her presence felt with several pillows tied to her midriff to appear pregnant.
The senile storytelliing goes into labour far too hastily in this over-stuffed plot.