Judgementall Hai Kya, Don’t Judge Heroine Judge Film

Judgementall Hai Kya

Starring Rajkummar Rao, Kangana Ranaut

Directed by Prakash  Kovelamudi

Rating: *** ½(3 and a half stars)

This is  probably the darkest  comedy  you will see this year. Or any  other year. Also the most fiercely  original  and  unflinching. Judgementall  Hai Kya(whatever that means) is not  for the  squeamish  or the tender-hearted. It is  the opposite  of a rom-com. Perhaps  a romp-com, as it  takes us one   one wild ride through the  minds  of  two of the craziest protagonists you will meet on this side  of  Bonnie  and  Clyde.

 Bobby  , that’s Kangana Ranaut playing what looks like  a defiantly  constructed  fictional image of  the intrepid avatar she  assumes in real  life, a troubled  soul , if ever there was one . The feel-anything-but-good  film begins with Bobby’s parents  plunging to  their death during Holi.

You get the feeling the writer  and the director  were sold on the visual of two figures plunging to the ground in a  swirl of dizzying colours. To be  sure, the  visual palate is  often showy, exhibitionistic and intended to  create  a splash of embarrassingly  gaudy colours with feelings to  match. That  goes for Ms Ranaut’s dress sense and  hairstyle also.

Everything here is meant to shock. Perhaps in the way  the leading lady does in real life. Indeed  much of the  heroine’s  erratic behaviour  could be conveniently  attributed to  the actress’ real-life  conduct. And that’s the worst  service  you can do  to Kannika Dhillon’s  darkly provocative screenplay where anything can happen, because, like I said, we are meant to undertake  a journey with two  of the most psychologically  disturbed  criminal minds to have ever posed as ‘Hero’ and ‘Heroine’ in Hindi cinema.

 While giving away  the plot may invite the wrath  of Ms Ranaut’s  alert and aggressive  admirers, not giving away the plot is not one of  Ranaut’s creepy character Bobby’s USPs. Bobby is crazy and not shy of showing it. In  the way she stalks her tenants Keshav(Rajkumar Rao) and his wife(the pretty AmyraDastur)Ranaut  displays  a rare resoluteness and fearlessness in her screen  presence. She  doesn’t care how she looks, and who looks, as long as she is  doing what comes  naturally to her. Playing what looks like  a schizophrenic  character  ,this is  the trickiest role of  Kangana’s  career and she  is  up to the challenge.

Raj Kummar Rao playing her  raven Ravanesque multiple-disordered  personality  will  shock you with his artillery  of raw and  rippling histrionics. Like  much  that  goes in this nippy snappy  work of  surrealistic art, Rao’ s character  is  unpredictable  to the end. The Ramayan references  that  are  plucked  out  of their original habitat taken to London  to nourish and  nurture the narrative ‘s noire aspirations, didn’t really work for me . But then I  saw the mythological  references as part of  the madness that  inflicts the  film from first frame  to last.Then everything works, because  nothing in this film is meant  to  be normal.

 Judgementall  dares  you to get judgmental about its heroine. As  Kangana   manoeuvres  through the maddest  role of  her career  she is  joined by some fine actors .Specially enjoyable are Hussain Dalaal as her  slavish boyfriend who wants sex but gets , in  Kapil Sharma’s works babajee ka thullu, and the ever-reliable  Jimmy Sheirgil who for  reasons unknown, gets attracted  to the most dangerous woman on the planet.

Kangana’s  Bobby  or Rao’s Keshav are not people  you would like to meet socially. But this  film   telling their  crazy quirky combined karmic teerth has teeth and claws.

You’ve never seen anything  like this before.