Starring: Arshad Warsi, Amrita Rao, Boman Irani, Saurabh Shukla
Directed by Subhash Kapoor
Rating:
The film may be titled Jolly LLB, but belongs wholly to Justice Sundarlal Tripathi, rivetingly played by Saurabh Shukla. Whether peering closely into his mobile, berating a lawyer, seeking favour from an advocate or casually asking for a cup of tea after pandemonium in the court, Shukla is spot on with the nuances. The film, however, is not. After the delightfully eccentric and out-of-the-box Phas Gaye Re Obama, Subhash Kapoor’s Jolly LLB disappoints. The satire on the judiciary, inspired by the Sanjay Nanda-BMW case, with Arshad Warsi and Boman Irani as rival lawyers, is too regular and square to take you by surprise the way Phas Gaye did. In fact, things get moralistic, cliched and cringingly sanctimonious, especially in a scene where a pavement dweller tells Warsi not to take a leak on the spot where his family intends to sleep. Kapoor captures the shabby ambience of the courts very well, but the wit is laboured and scarce. Characters that promise quirky, black humour—Vibha Chhibar as the judge in the Meerut court, Brijendra Kala as the advocate-astrologer and Sanjay Mishra as the power-broker hawaldar—hardly have any screen time. Ditto for old-time actor Ramesh Deo as chaiwale Mr Kaul.
