How was it working with that ensemble with Akshay Kumar in their midst? The film has some fine performances by noted character actors. Professionally, I’ll say the case is subjudice and he should not be pronounced guilty before the court announces its verdict. Was there any reluctance to work with Kapoor since he has been accused of molestation? In European cinema, a similar story would have a lot more silences because they do not talk so much and there aren’t so many people. Also, let us not forget this is India, we are verbose people. However, it is not the hero who won but his faith in the system. If not articulated, people will walk out of the theatre thinking that the hero won. The one by me tries to keep hope in the judicial system alive. The monologue by Mathur raises a question and the one by Jolly is meant to show the mirror and debunk Mathur’s argument. The monologues sum up the film and, critics apart, they seem to have met with audience approval - people in the theatres have been applauding the scenes. The only aspect that the critics seem to mind is the monologues at the end. In the end, he makes sure that the statement of the most important witness is recorded. He understands that the idea is to derail the case but deals with it by also sitting on a dharna to oppose Mathur’s dharna. When Annu Kapoor’s character, advocate Mathur sits on a dharna in the court to provoke him, he doesn’t file a contempt of court case against him. For instance, in the first part, when Boman Irani’s character Rajpal screams in the court, my character, Judge Tripathi, screams back and threatens to smash his head. Now, he is older, a heart patient, and he has seen more life. My character is ideologically the same, I agree, but there are changes. In the sequel, he was moved to Varanasi and helps this Jolly with evidence. In the first part, he was the hawaldar who helps Jolly. What was in the film for you to want to take it up again?
Yours is the only character from the first film. WATCH VIDEO | Jolly LLB 2: Arshad Warsi, Akshay Kumar Have Jolly Good Time We are punished for being filmmakers.Īlso read | Jolly LLB 2 box office collection day 9: Akshay Kumar film stays strong despite new releases In India, we don’t critique, we criticise, which breaks a maker’s spirit. Internationally, if you show your film at a festival and a journalist wants to ask you a question, he will first congratulate you and mention the merits of the film before talking about what he disagrees with. Even the media is partly responsible for this phenomenon.
In the industry, people keep telling you not to make such films and they blame it on the audience - that they won’t get it. But, one cannot master this unless one tries. Nuanced work can easily go wrong even if the maker has his or her soul in the right place. How difficult was it to deal with that aspect? To touch upon so many issues also bears the potential risk of making it clumsy. Jolly LLB succeeds in capturing the times we live in through these small touches. And cinema - a form of literature today - should also do so. Literature isn’t mere storytelling but also gives a sense of time and place. They don’t get into their relationship to focus on their equation but it’s presented by-the-way while Jolly and his wife Pushpa (Huma Qureshi) discuss the case. For instance, the reference to the fact that the Supreme Court will have a hearing in the middle of the night for special cases, as it did in the Yakub Memon case, or the scene where Jolly (Akshay Kumar) is shown cooking for his family. The film effortlessly touches upon several issues without steering away from the story or the script.