Jango is saved by its concept

In 2015, we had Indru Netru Naalai, an ingenious and enjoyable movie that succeeded in Indianising a excessive idea which is sort of a well-liked one in Hollywood motion pictures — time journey. Six years later, now, we now have Jango, which tries to do the identical with one other standard high-concept style in Hollywood — time loop! In these movies, a personality will get caught in a selected time-frame, say, a day, and goes by way of the identical day each time they get up, with everybody round them doing the identical issues that they did the day before today! They usually have to determine a option to cease this in order that issues can return to regular.

However in Jango, for the primary 40 minutes, it looks like it’s us, the viewers, who’re in a time loop. Bland actor. Horrible comedy. Painful romance. Repeat. That is how these parts go, and we really feel trapped. Agreed, director Mano Karthikeyan, a debutant, is merely establishing the plot in these parts, however is it an excessive amount of to ask for one thing that feels natural and involving?

Right here, the plot revolves round Gautham (Satheesh Kumar), a superb neurosurgeon, who’s making an attempt to woo again his estranged spouse Nisha (Mirnalini Ravi), who works within the TV media. Their romance is what’s going to present the impetus for Gautham to attempt to make sense of his scenario, so you’d anticipate it to be endearing or not less than one thing that we care about, proper? However right here, we get a generic falling-in-love montage tune. With the leads missing any chemistry, Gautham and Nisha at all times really feel like acquaintances fairly than lovers. And the explanation why they break up up is just not portrayed successfully. So, when the movie begins with Gautham’s makes an attempt at wooing Nisha again, all we get are an entire bunch of comedians who’re unfunny and a whole lot of slapping!

After which, Gautham will get caught in a time loop, and the movie turns into considerably bearable. As realisation dawns on him that he is perhaps residing in the identical day day by day, he learns that somebody is out to kill Nisha and tries to trace down the assassin with assist from his cop pal Krishnamoorthy (Karunakaran, the one actor within the movie who places up a semblance of efficiency). We get a thriller involving alien spaceships, synthetic hearts, scientists having a foul hair day, unhealthy cops and these positively really feel higher than all the things that got here earlier than. We even readily look previous the standard plotting and the narrative and character inconsistencies. At one level, a scientist, performed by Hareesh Peradi, is named Stephen Hawking’s protege, and he talks in regards to the affect {that a} meteor hit might need on town. Later, we see him creating synthetic organs. Is he a theoretical physicist or an inventor? The idea and Ghibran’s rating, over-the-top by design, make us overlook the randomness within the writing.

On the entire, Jango is the sort of film that has a killer idea that kind of salvages all the things else within the movie… unhealthy writing, vacant performances and flat visuals.