‘Jabariya Jodi’ is a mumbo jumbo of humorous take cum love story cum social message around the concept of groom kidnapping or what is known as the ‘pakadwa shaadi’ in Bihar .
The childhood love between Abhay (Sidharth Malhotra) and Babli (Parineeti Chopra) gets rekindled when they meet years later. He now heads the groom kidnapping gang and she’s the infamous ‘Babli Bomb’ after having beaten to pulp a boy who ditched her.
Heartbroken again after Abhay ditches her, she kidnaps him and later on his father’s (Javed Jaffrey) orders , he kidnaps her. And unfortunately for the audience who felt kidnapped, the fiasco continues with marriage altars left in waiting while the bride and grooms play hit and miss .
Poorly written by Sanjeev Jha, the movie that’s overtly lengthy at 2.5 hours is q confusing one. The director tries hard though to make it an entertaining one and succeeds to some extent with the help of humour in dialogues and a good set of side cast like Sanjay Mishra (Babli’s father), Javed Jaffrey, Chandan Roy Sanyal (Abhay’s cousin) and Aparshakti Khurana (Babli’s friend).
But even though these actors were a pleasure to watch, most of them were under-utilised.
Major chunk of focus being Parineeti and Sidharth was the major bane apart from the muddled writing.
Sidharth is the last person to look a rustic Bihari and Parineeti is most outlandishly dressed for her role.
While the trailers promised a comedy entertainer, the makers’ attempt to drive in the sentimental love angle was a disaster.
Let’s not even talk about the so-called social message on the evils of forced marriages that they thought they might be delivering.
Performance wise, Parineeti seemed too repetitive. Her feisty girl image seems like done to death.
Sidharth was the biggest misfit for the role. Their romance seemed a hurried one with zero chemistry.
The only thing positive as a feedback was the humour in dialogues and situations. Plenty of chuckle moments and some hilarious ones too. I wish the makers had let it be a mindless comedy and banked more upon the potential side cast who were good.
The editor too failed to do his job. The last 20 minutes, with no humour left and all needless melodrama was pure torture.
Consider watching if you can keep your expectations down. The first half and the lighter moments might make it worth your while .
Score 5 on 10