When you see a bad film and you call it a bad film, you will get that satisfaction of expressing your disappointment. But there are some spectacularly bad movies that will make you feel that you are being soft on the movie even when you are saying the movie is a horrible one. The new Dileep Arjun movie Jack & Daniel directed SL Puram Jayasurya is one grand example of that kind of horrendous movie making. In the movie, the main protagonist Jack talks about the importance of observing what is happening around us and it seems like the director never applied that theory in terms of observing movies that are happening in the last one or two decades.
Jack, our central protagonist is a thief who takes unaccounted money of major names in society. And because it is black money, there was never an investigation against him. After almost 14 robberies by Jack, an IPS officer named Daniel was roped in to do the investigation. The cat and mouse game between Jack and Daniel is the story of Jack & Daniel.
In one scene Jack is showing his newly met friend Susmitha how to properly drink a cup of tea. The lady who sat behind me was able to predict what will happen in that scene eventually as it was highly predictable and cheesy. Jack & Daniel is a pile of such guessable and useless scenes. I just can’t believe someone approved those pathetic greenscreen shots of Dileep sliding on the steps of an old fort on a piece of wood. Jack & Daniel is one weird movie where Kerala police are traveling in cars like Range Rover, Wagon R, Thar, etc. The ongoing trend of worshipping the army to gain the sentiments of the audience is happening here as well and it is done in the cheesiest way possible and Edakkad Battalion gets a companion in the form of Jack & Daniel. The comedy is darn bad. In one scene Dileep tells Anju Kurien that Goa is a city with a positive vibe because its name says Go-Va (Come again); if you just did a facepalm reading that, imagine an entire audience who had to witness that scene on the big screen.
In one scene Peter Hein is introduced as himself and we are shown footage from movies like Pulimurugan, Madhuraraja, Petta, Baahubali, etc. Then that scene becomes a comedy scene where eventually Peter Hein ends up singing one of those songs that became famous via Tik Tok. That is supposed to be a comedy scene according to the director and the tragedy of this movie is this outdated sense of humor of writer-director SL Puram Jayasurya. The Kerala Police officers are buffoons and that whole sequence of Dileep in Pardha with all those kinky jokes is just tough to sit through. Jayasurya’s idea of tackling situations that can help the investigators track the thief is also extremely lame. And we won’t be surprised when some characters show their true selves towards the end, as we have seen this formula a million times. The cinematography of the film is very basic and the imagination and visual effects quality are possibly the worst I have seen in recent times. Songs are mostly unnecessary and the mediocrity of the movie only gets enhanced with the loud background score by Gopi Sunder. I think Gopi Sunder simply tweaked his Sagar Alias Jacky BGM for this one.
Dileep just doesn’t have the grace to pull off this role. The body and the body language of the actor just don’t suit this kind of character. His animated coolness looks so underwhelming and sometimes it leads to unintentional comedy. If they had done a role swapping between Arjun and Dileep, even though the story is still garbage, we would have at least felt that the casting was done perfectly. Daniel is running like an athlete and Jack is running like someone who needs to go toilet immediately due to a bad stomach and we are supposed to believe that Jack is the fastest and the sharpest. In terms of acting, there is nothing much there for Arjun to do other than posing for stylish frames. Anju Kurien is that pointless addition whose track will be predictable at the beginning itself. Saiju Kurup and Ashokan are there as these buffoon-like police characters and it’s really tough to watch those comedy sequences. Innocent is also pretty annoying as the minister.
SL Puram Jayasurya is inspired by a lot of movies that got released almost a decade back and he sort of forgot the fact that movies like this have now become a formula. What was more alarming by the way was when the movie tried to announce the possibility of a sequel by the end of the film; I hope Shibu Thameens has the sensibility to scrap any such plans.
What was more alarming by the way was when the movie tried to announce the possibility of a sequel by the end of the film; I hope Shibu Thameens has the sensibility to scrap any such plans.
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended
