Jai Bhim Movie Review

If you’ve been an avid movie buff, certain films like The Mississippi Burning and Article 15 would have left you wondering, why Tamil cinema that often keeps surprising the audiences with new-fangled movies aren’t attempting with such hard-hitting tales. The answer arrives late in time – Jai Bhim. A story based on the real-life incident that happened in 1993, which shook the entire state of Tamil Nadu.

Senggeni (Lijomol Jose) and Rajakannu (Manikandan) are one among the innocuous tribe in Tamil Nadu. They remain a loud example of saying that goes ‘People close to Nature are pure and flawless’. Rajakannu has vowed to build his spouse a stone hut and is working sincerely. Their peaceful lives are shattered when a robbery at Landlord’s house, which makes the police hunt down Rajakannu as the culprit. Despite his relentless utterance of ‘I am innocent, they beat him black and blue. When he goes missing from the police station along with two more innocents from his tribe, Sengenni approaches Chandru (Suriya), a reputed lawyer, who always stands up for the rights of the oppressed and that’s when the real battle begins.

It’s hard to conceive and craft a script that really demands a whole lot of brain work. TJ Gnanavel, whose directorial debut ‘Kootathil Oruthan’ had a good plot but still didn’t find a good reach surprises us with a shockingly repellent tale. The running length is 163 minutes, and it’s not an easy deal to handle the plot with ease. The first half leaves you appalled, and, in other words, you might be insitigated to skip the gruesome drama inside the prison, where even a pregnant lady and a woman, are tormented physically and mentally. ‘Solace’ becomes the need of the hour not just for the innocent Senggeni, but for audiences as well. We are pushed to the extremity in minds – Stop this, or else we are stepping out. That’s when the entry of protagonist Chandru (Suriya) brings up a sigh of relief. But you’ll have to patiently wait for the first half to wind up. The second hour turns to be gripping as the investigation and courtroom drama get intense. Some Goosebumps moments would have gained applause if released in the theaters. Say, for instance, a police officer snatches the little daughter of Senggeni to make her pregnant mother reach the police station and what happens next with the interference of Suriya is just awesome.

The lead actors Lijomol Jose and Manikandan are the souls of this movie. They have lived to the fullest, and they deserve tons of accolades. This is a ‘Suriya’ that audiences expected over a long period. He need not scream heroic as in Singam or do larger-than-life roles. A 4 or 5 films like this in a row, and he is going to become a Pan-Indian icon. Prakash Raj precisely becomes a source of attraction in the second half. Any other actor than him for this character would have slightly simmered the intensity. The actors in the negative character are the pillars of this film. They invariably earn your wrath, and that’s not an easy deal.

Technically, the songs look good with the picturing, but not real classic as we heard from Sean Roldan’s erstwhile movies. The cinematography is decent. Editing deserves special mention as this work should have made the editor team exhausted.

On the whole, 2D Entertainment and director TJ Gnanavel have created an incredible piece of work. Jai Bhim is a heart-wrenching tale that commutes urban audiences into the lands where innocents are tortured mercilessly and doesn’t fail to bring up a good solution as it happened with a real-life incident in 1993-1995.