This film Jolly LLB is a social satire on the law system of the country, where a small town lawyer played by Arshad Warsi is pitted against Boman Irani, a flourishing high court lawyer.
Jolly LLB – movie review
Jagdish Tyagi aka Jolly (Arshad Warsi) is a small-town lawyer from Meerut, who dreams and strives to find fame and fortune in a big city, where he fights an open and shut case against one of the biggest and most influential lawyers, Tejinder Rajpal (Boman Irani).
The small town guy sets out to make it big in the capital city of India. Jolly is struggling to hit the big league, while just managing to survive in the urban city. He stumbles upon a case in which a drunk rich kid runs his car over a group of people sleeping on the pavement.
The story seems to be based on a high profile case of a rich youngster who committed this blunder of running over the pavement dwellers and he had to serve a jail sentence.
Jolly files a PIL (Public Interest Litigation), notwithstanding in his half baked English, rapped by the Judge for his typos and grammatical errors. His adversary is the meticulous and smooth talking Rajpal who is so confident that the PIL would be set aside in the very first hearing.
The honourable judge Tripathi played by Saurabh Shukla, upholds the PIL and gives Jolly a chance to gather further evidence to his claim that it was the rich kid and his car which were the actual cause of the accident.
We have court-room drama which exposes the flaws in our judicial system. These flaws are exploited by the rich and famous who manage to free themselves of such crimes.
The experienced Justice Tripathi allows Jolly some freedom to build up the case while leaving the over confident Rajpal fuming.
For Jolly it is a ladder to name, fame and money if he manages to win the case. For his adversary it seemed just another case which would have been turned in their favour.
In the course of the hearings, Rajpal manipulates his rich client and succeeds in extracting exorbitant amounts as his fees. A dummy witness adds fire to the case, and then there is a lucrative offer to Jolly for an outside the court settlement so that the case gets diluted and with subsequent hearings could have been disposed off in favour of the rich clients.
Jolly gets dazzled with the offer, but it is his girl friend who makes him realize the motive of his life and then he decides to fight the case right till he emerges victorious.
Now it is become more difficult for Jolly to pursue the case, with hurdles created against him and the goons sent out by the senior lawyer and his rich and influential client.
Arshad Warsi is at his comical best. He is witty and alert. Boman Irani just walks through his character as that of a highly successful advocate. Saurabh Shukla superbly carrier out his role as the lower court judge. Amrita Rao isn’t given much of the screen time, expect for some romantic moments with Jolly and a song or two.
The working of the courts, the plight of the judges, characterization of the lawyers practicing in the lower courts are very realistically depicted.
Director Subhash Kapoor uses satire for simplistically passing serious messages. It is the story of an underdog taking over the mighty. And winning in the end.
Cast of Jolly LLB:
Arshad Warsi – Jagdish Tyagi (Jolly)
Boman Irani – Tejinder Rajpal
Saurabh Shukla – Justice Tripathi
Amrita Rao – Sandhya
Harsh Chhaya – Albert Pinto
Mohan Kapoor – Yograj Dewan
Vibha Chibber – Meerut Judge
Mohan Agashe – Rahul’s Grandfather
Manoj Pahwa – Pratap
Sanjay Mishra – Guruji
Credits of Jolly LLB:
Studio – Fox Star Studios
Directed by Subhash Kapoor
Produced by Naren Kumar
Music by Krsna
Story – Subhash Kapoor
Screenplay, Dialogues – Subhash Kapoor
Editor – Sandeep Singh Bajeli
Background Music – Sanjoy Chowdhury
Lyricist – Subhash Kapoor
Costume Designer – Veera Kapur
Cinematography – Anshuman Mahaley
Action – Parvez Khan
Art – Shumon Mahapatra
Choreographers – Ravi Botalje, Firoz Naazi