ai Gangaajal movie review: Priyanka Chopra is far too smooth for this part

Shah Priyanka Chopra’s too-sophisticated unmade-up-make-up is very distracting, even in her few convincing moments. And the film goes on for far too long, even when we know how all of it will end.

The best part about ‘Jai Gangaajal’, director Prakash Jha’s latest foray into the country’s badlands, is a surprise acting turn by Jha himself: as a corrupt-cop-with-a-latent-conscience, Jha looks as if he has been doing this all his life, so comfortable is he in front of the camera.

Too bad you can’t say the same for the leading lady. As the take-charge-policewoman-in-a-tough-posting, Priyanka Chopra comes off as dressed-for-the-part and stilted. You can see she’s trying hard, especially in some of the ‘action’ sequences in which she has to kick and punch and thrash, but she’s far too smooth for this part.

Everything else in this sequel of ‘Gangaajal’, which replaces the khaki-clad Ajay Devgn with Priyanka Chopra, and pouring acid in the eye with a hanging from the nearest tree/post/fan, falls strictly in the seen-before-category. Bankipur, a village over- run by greedy politicians, ‘bikey-huey-cops’, and self-serving locals, could be any Jha ‘gaon’ from his previous films.

The detailing is just a little different—an effeminate ‘chamcha’ (Sharma), a young girl refusing to give up her patch of land (Tamotia), a podgy baddie in colourful shirts (Kamath; nice to see him in a substantial role)—but overall, this is Jha’s much-traversed universe, in which the lawless rule and the law is an ass, till the hero (or in this instance, the heroine) shows up to clean up the mess.

Watch audience reaction to Jai Gangaajal