Review Overview
Performances
Screenplay and Direction
Technical Apsects and BGM
A genuine experiment!
Jil Jung Juk sets its heart on becoming a trendsetting film with amusingly idiosyncratic characters, balmy treatment and first-rate aesthetics; but what we get at best is only a genuine experiment from a young team with lots of conviction for the craft. Though the film is sporadically brilliant in parts, the unappealing comical situations which form a major chunk of the story don’t stir up enough laughter.
Cast: Siddharth, Avinash, Sanath, RJ Balaji, Radha Ravi, Naaser & others
Cinematography: Shreyaas Krishna
Music: Vishal Chandrashekar
Editing: Kurtz Schneider
PRO: Suresh Chandra
Written & Directed by: Deeraj Vaidy
Produced by: Etaki Entertainment
Release Date: 12-02-2016
Run Time: 02:13:00
Jil Jung Juk sets its heart on becoming a trendsetting film with amusingly idiosyncratic characters, balmy treatment and first-rate aesthetics; but what we get at best is only a genuine experiment from a young team with lots of conviction for the craft.
Though the film is sporadically brilliant in parts, the unappealing comical situations which form a major chunk of the story don’t stir up enough laughter. For every rip-roaring sequence, debutant filmmaker Deeraj cools his heels with a long stretch of tiresome scenes that completely let the momentum down and sometimes even puts our patience to test. The flamboyant tomfoolery in certain characters fails to crack us up and the joke-telling falls flat more often than not. That’s the major shortcoming of Jil Jung Juk, which endeavors to achieve a full-fledged screwball comedy.
Three eccentric guys–Naan’Jil’ Sivaji (Siddharth), ‘Jung’ulingam (Avinash Raghudevan) and Jaguar Jagan aka ‘Juk’ (Sananth Reddy)–set out to complete a vital mission assigned by dreaded gangster Deivyanayagam. Their never-ending peccadilloes and petty misadventures are narrated in this 132-minute long wannabe dark comedy, which goes down like a lead balloon post interval.
The first half works decently with loads of enjoyable gags that fall right under the adult brand. Even the double entendres are straight-forward here and most importantly, they are not about ‘women’, which is quite unlike most of the Tamil films and surely deserves mention. But Deeraj loses balance in the second half, which completely goes astray with mundane one-liners and antics.
The two characters that effortlessly grab our attention are ‘Pai’, Deivanayagam’s sidekick and ‘Jung’. The former is inspired from the insanely popular Harahara Mahadevi phenomenon and the latter, played by Avinash, impresses with his wacky body-language and delightful North Madras tongue.
Siddharth as a charming rogue, who is endowed with remarkable gift of the gab and shrewdness, fits the bill and does complete justice to his role. If not for his earnest hunger to set a benchmark as a producer, I don’t think this script would have come to fruition.
Despite what’s being a shoe-string budget, the film is technically solid with topnotch cinematography by Shreeyas Krishna, who resorts to striking color palettes aided by dynamic camera angles. The spirited background score by Vishal Chandrasekhar perfectly sets the mood for the film. His excellent use of the chanting Carnatic sounds in the climax shootout scene is bang-up and merits applause.
The take away: Though the team misses to hit the target, they are headed in the right direction.
Jil Jung Juk Movie Review Rating: 2.75/5
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Written by Surendhar MK