An Odia movie just before 3 years meant the usual boy meets girl or vice versa, romance, songs, opposition from families, the boy is a goon, the girl opposes then marries another boy etc etc. Lots of melodrama, forced laughter, unnecessary songs and action sequences or even take off from another famous regional language movie. What these last 3 years has given the audience is a variety of out of the box thought provoking movies like Pushkara, Pratikshya, Daman and the recent Trikanya. And now Jajabara 2.0 arrived.
Being a tribute to yesteryear's Odia movie superstar Sriram Panda, the story is about a cab driver who happens to be a cold blooded contract killer and who is a die hard fan of Sriram Panda and his passenger who is seeking some redemption after killing his lover. This duo go on a night spree of drinking, smoking and sharing their sentiments. This much. Nothing drama. Pure thriller. This type of set-up with some fine BGM and the night shots of city is perfect for a bone chilling thriller movie in the likes of Tarantino, Korean movie or some Anurag Kashyap's hardcore Thriller/Drama. In fact Mr. Kashyap has himself praised the movie after watching it.
Talking about the acting, the two lead actors Devesh Ranjan (Jagat) & Prasanjit Mohapatra (Satya) have both given their career best performances. The direction of Abhishek Swain has some major plot holes. The background story of Satya isn't shown as is a brief narration of Jagat's story. The mainstream Odia movie audience may not like this movie as they are accustomed by the contemporary Odia movies or more to say the rip-offs & spin offs of some south Indian movies, which was evident by the empty seats in the PVR Utkal Kanika Galleria, BBSR. We were hardly only 15-20 audiences present there. Had it been the usual Odia movie, then the theatre would have been houseful for the entire 2 weeks. After the show the lead actor Devesh Ranjan discussed with us about the absence of contemporary Odia audiences.
But still the story, set-ups & the Director's daring attempt to foray into this genre and with such style is definitely welcomed by the more serious movie lovers and by people like me who were desperate to see some changes in Odia movie Industry. This movie is going to be a cult classic of its genre.
My Rating 6/10.
