Judgementall Hai Kya Movie Review: Kangana Ranaut and Rajkummar Rao Liven Up This Trippy Potpourri of Dark Humour and Intriguing Suspense

Judgementall Hai Kya Movie Review: Bobby (Kangana Ranaut) is a dubbing artist who had suffered from a traumatic incident in her childhood. The experience had left her with lifetime scars, though Bobby uses them to revel in her own delusions. In that delusional world fuelled by her own career of make-believe, arrives a couple, Rima (Amyra Dastur) and Keshav (Rajkummar Rao), as paying guests in her house. Bobby gets obsessed with Keshav, or perhaps, the alpha masculinity of him, and even his often dicey behaviour intrigues her a lot. She is both attracted to him, as well as, suspects that he is upto no good. Judgementall Hai Kya: Before Kangana Ranaut-Rajkummar Rao Starrer, 10 Memorable Movies With Flawed Male and Female Leads Who Manipulate Each Other!

Is he though? Have Bobby's delusions got the better of her senses? Or is Keshav gaslighting her into thinking she has the wrong notions about him? Our suspicions about both Bobby and Keshav twist further when a murder happens in the house and both of them become suspects in it.

How best to describe a movie like Judgementall Hai Kya? You can call it a 'mystery thriller meets a dark comedy that is wrapped around a psychological drama'. And to give credit to South filmmaker Prakash Kovelamudi and writer Kanika Dhillon (who has a cameo in the film), they do justice, not completely but acceptable, to the genres mentioned here. And also to the totally apt casting of Kangana Ranaut as Bobby. (Some Spoilers Ahead)

The movie's charm relies on how interestingly they have etched out the characters of Bobby and Keshav. The suspense surrounding who's telling the truth, and who isn't, may not exactly be difficult to solve. But Kovelamudi and Dhillon still manage to keep the mystery ticking in how they treat their lead characters. Judgementall Hai Kya makes Bobby's trippy thoughts as our own, so like her, we don't really make out what is real and what's not. The first half gives us a tragic backstory to her character, which I initially thought was quite needless. I was wrong, though, as it helps us understand why Bobby doubts about Keshav even when she is creepily besotted by him. This also helps in giving a sympathetic tinge to her persona, when we realise there is also a sense of protectiveness under her inherent psychosis.

As for Keshav, the mystery surrounding his persona is smartly played around till the last scene. We don't really get to read him as a person; most of our aspersions about Keshav is through Bobby's view and she isn't exactly a reliable narrator. Even when he has to express his naked emotions, Keshav's face is partly shrouded in darkness and once again, we are as clueless about his intentions as Bobby is. The only one time we get to understand his real emotions, even the screen goes gloriously ablaze with a dazzling display of lights, reflections and flames. From Queen to Judgementall Hai Kya, Rajkummar Rao Reveals That His Rapport With Kangana Ranaut Hasn’t Changed.

Judgementall Hai Kya works best when it brings these characters together and let us figure out who is the bigger psycho among the duo. Ranaut and Rao's maddening jugalbandi is a treat to watch which makes some of the movie's flaws bearable.

I, especially, loved the buildup in the first half that had a more of a lighter touch, leading to a death that builds up more intrigue. There are quite a few quirky scenes that are hilarious. Like, Bobby's frequent tendency to bring out morbid past experiences into normal conversations. Or that cockroach story she tells the investigating cops (Satish Kaushik and Brijendra Kala) that allays her suspicions about Keshav.

I was excited to see the mental cat-and-mouse game between Bobby and Keshav as they use the law to pin the blame on each other. To my surprise, Judgementall Hai Kya takes a different turn altogether near the interval.

Don't know if it was the subversion of my expectations or that things really began to drag, the second half felt quite underwhelming, though not without its moments. If the first half was like an Alfred Hitchcockian thriller smashed into a Coen Brothers films, the second half felt like Alfonso Cuaron's Birdman being embedded into the previously-made hotchpotch (not to forget, a heavy influence of Ingrid Bergman's 1944 classic Gaslight). The narrative tends to delve into to abstractness of it all, with even more trippier scenes and heavy parallels to Ramayana. In fact, more than the Ramayana parallels, I was fascinated with how certain aspects of Bobby's character draw inferences from Kangana Ranaut's real-life persona and the controversies she is involved in (including the recent spat with a journalist).

These touches are nice, especially the Ramayana inferences that build up to a very terrific framing for a reveal in the climax (even if it becomes totally on the face). But the scenes tend to drag a lot especially when Judgementall Hai Kya goes further into Bobby's warped imagination and tries to pull her off as a wronged 'Sita'. At times, I had this feeling that this is a deliberate attempt by the makers to slow us in figuring things out (even though, it really doesn't need much of an effort). The subplot involving a theatre director (Jimmy Sheirgill) only adds to the fluff and could have been written around in a better way. Or chopped off from the film.

Still, the second half gets your attention when the film puts together Rao and Ranaut in one frame.

Watch the Trailer of Judgementall Hai Kya Below:

Judgementall Hai Kya deserves quite an applause for its technical aspects too. The production design is mindbogglingly good, elevated by Pankaj Kumar's fine camerawork. The CGI disappoints, though, especially in the climax. Also, special mention has to be given for Daniel B George's psychotropic score that elevates even the average scenes.

The Performances

Don't get me wrong, but I can't see a more perfect casting of Bobby beyond Kangana Ranaut. Ignoring her real-life idiosyncrasies, which ideally should have no place in a review about her film, the actress is truly incredible in a rather difficult role. Her act feels more assured, more well-placed that what I saw in Manikarnika (where she tend to go artificial at a few places). Bobby is the kind of role that infuses Kangana's eccentricities and makes a fine job of it.

Rajkummar Rao has, understandably, lesser screentime than Ranaut, but every scene he is in, is a treat to watch. In fact, Judgementall Hai Kya comes alive once he drops in the film. Using a blend of roguish charm, animal magnetism and empathetic brittleness, Rao keeps us guessing about what his character is upto right to the very end.

Among the supporting cast, Hussain Dalal provides some huge chuckles as Bobby's desperate and confused boyfriend. Amyra Dastur is kinda okay as Rao's wife. Jimmy Sheirgill appears in the second half as a potential love interest for Bobby and he plays it easy, even if the character doesn't really feel needed here. Instead, how I wished the entertaining tag-team of Satish Kaushik and Brijendra Kala could have gotten an expanded role, especially in the second half. Amrita Puri puts up a good show as Bobby's cousin.

Yay!

- Kangana Ranaut and Rajkummar Rao

- Some Good Writing and Direction

- The Quirkiness in the First Half

- The Mystery Buildup

- Technical Aspects

Nay!

- The Second Half Drags A Lot

- Gets Too Abstract for Mainstream Audience

- CGI is Patchy

- The Ramayana Inferences Could Have Been Trimmed

Final Thoughts

Judgementall Hai Kya is a wicked potpourri of dark humour, intriguing suspense and intense psychological drama. At times, it gets a bit too stretched, abstract and trippy for its own good. At other times, it feels like a meta-commentary on Kangana's own recent spate of controversies. Even then, Kangana Ranaut and Rajkummar Rao's fantastic performances help to get through those patchy portions.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 26, 2019 08:45 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).