Good Luck Jerry Movie Review: Jahnvi Kapoor's Remake of Kolamavu Kokila is Worth a Watch! (LatestLY Exclusive)

Good Luck Jerry Movie Review: A disclaimer first, I haven't gotten around to watch the 2018 Tamil film Kolamavu Kokila, starring Nayanthara, which is now adapted into Bollywood as Good Luck Jerry, starring Janhvi Kapoor. But I have heard nice things about, and since 90% of the remakes never manage to outdo the original, I am expecting it to be really good. For Good Luck Jerry was a mostly a fun watch, thanks to its black comic elements and a very likeable cast, led by a young Ms Kapoor. Good Luck Jerry Review: Critics Find Janhvi Kapoor's Drug Smuggler Avatar Entertaining Despite ‘Hiccups'.

Directed by Siddharth Sen, Good Luck Jerry revolves around Jaya Kumari aka Jerry (Janhvi Kapoor), a Bihari immigrant in Punjab who stays in a mohalla with her mother (Mita Vashisht) and younger sister (Samta Sudiksha). Jerry works at a massage parlor while her mother sells veg momos. The family comes in sudden need of Rs 20 lakhs when the mother is diagnosed with lung cancer.

To bear the expenses, Jerry becomes a frequent drug mule for a smuggler called Timmy (Jaswant Singh Dalal, a wonderful actor who, unfortunately, figures less in the second half), who himself works for Daler (Sushant Singh). Since girls are least susceptible to police checks, Jerry becomes Timmy's most successful drug mule, though she soon realises that there is no way out for her. Unless she carves her own way of escape.

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Thanks to an interesting setting and a colourful set of characters, Good Luck Jerry reels you in right from the start when Jerry and her family is introduced. As the story progresses and Jerry gets trapped in the world of drugs mafia, things turn for the better, of course not for Jerry, but for the viewer. Timmy and his gang add to the humour quotient of the film, especially his right hand man Jigar, played by a scene-stealing Sahil Mehta. Another scene-stealer is Deepak Dobriyal, the self-professed Lothario of Jerry's mohalla who is infatuated with her. Every scene he is in is worth many laughs.

But while there is humour, Good Luck Jerry doesn't forget the real peril in which the protagonist is in. Here's where the film runs into some problems. The movie doesn't manage to balance the tones properly. Like for example, there is a scene where the mother beats up Jerry leading to the women end up crying, after a session of being threatened by Daler's goons. It is an emotional scene, but the very next sequence has Jerry and her family, along with her mother's admirer (an affable Neeraj Sood, though his intro scene is more creepy than adorable), planning out the heist without the emotional scars of last night.

Or even in terms of Jerry's transformation, the movie plays around with figuring out how to depict her tackling of each crisis. While usually giving out a picture of a scaredy cat, I was a little confused in a scene where Jerry allows Timmy to kill a suspected mole in his team as if she has wanted that to happen, only for us to see that the killings has affected her mentally.

The last hour of Good Luck Jerry when Jerry is tasked to transport 100 kilos of cocaine is the film at its most engaging, allowing its roster of characters all to enter the fray. Vashist and Dobriyal do their best work here, and the twists and turns are enjoyable, though again, the tonal issues do crop up and the Kaminey-like climax is more of a hit and miss affair.  OTT Releases Of The Week: Janhvi Kapoor’s Good Luck Jerry on Disney+ Hotstar, Masaba Gupta’s Masaba Masaba Season 2 on Netflix, Vineet Kumar Singh’s Rangbaaz Season 3 on ZEE5 & More.

As for Janhvi Kapoor, she is growing more and more confident as an actor with each film every since her raw debut in Dhadak. She is quite assured as a performer in Good Luck Jerry, never sticking out like a sore thumb in a cast of some excellent actors, though I am not very sure her accent sticks around often. A small drawback is that I wish that the actress was allowed to bring more range to her role, which would have made her transition into a strategist in the second half more believable. Otherwise, she is made to act petrified in nearly every scene.

Yay!

- The Actors

- Enough Thrills and Frills

Nay!

- Tonal Issues

- The Climax Isn't A Topper

Final Thoughts

Good Luck Jerry turns out to be a decent black comic thriller, and hopefully a decent adaptation too, that works due to its contained, fluff-free setting and a wonderful set of actors. Good Luck Jerry is streaming on Disney+ Hotstar.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 29, 2022 05:54 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).