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Like its title, which in the English spelling could stand for either the generic Hindi word for 'caste' or for a specific farming community in Northern India, Sunny Deol's latest vehicle Jaat is a schizophrenic beast. On the one hand it wants to be a tribute/cash-in to Deol's legacy as one of Bollywood's evergreen action movie stars. On the other hand, Deol has basically been air-dropped into the trappings of a Telugu masala flick. This is not surprising, since helmer Gopichand Malineni made his name with a string of such formula Telugu films, several of them starring this goon:
Compared to what Malineni makes him do in Jaat, Deol's previous action filmography is so grounded it would qualify as neo-realism. Interestingly, Randeep Hooda with his Haryanvi background is the only true 'Jaat' in the film (Deol's Punjabi heritage makes him a 'Jatt', which means the same thing, but not entirely); But Hooda here plays a Sri Lankan refugee called Ranatunga, while another Punjabi Vineet Kumar Singh (of Mukkabaaz fame) is cast as his psychotic younger brother Somulu(!). After having escaped the Lankan army and made his way to India with his comrades and a cache of gold (don't ask), Ranatunga runs a tyrannical parallel government in rural Andhra; In collusion with corrupt local authorities, his men oppress the cowed cow-munity, conducting periodic beheadings just to let them know who's boss. Decapitation is a major sport in Jaat - If you played a drinking game with each time someone's head flew off their shoulders, you'd be passed out well before the half-way mark.
The half-way mark incidentally is where the movie's title flashes on the screen. Deol's own entry is not long before; he is the lone non-saffron robed passenger boarding the train from Chennai to Ayodhya Dham. Hmm, according to IRCTC this is a journey that takes 39 hours. I have to wonder if Kill's success has birthed a trend of movies where folks that can afford flights (at least economy) opt for long rail journeys as an exercise in sheer masochism. But unlike Kill, this one goes off-rails fast. When technical reasons force the train to break trip, our nonchalant Jaat Wick gets himself an idli breakfast at a track-side cafe (It might be reading too much, but I wonder if his request for dal-roti getting pooh-poohed is Tollywood hinting at their current prevalence over the Hindi film industry). His meal is roughly interrupted when a bunch of local goons bump the plate out of his hands en route to heckling the cafe lady.
This begins the most fun part. Deol's request for an apology is naturally scorned by the goons. He then proceeds to give them the comeuppance they deserve and his fans demand. But even after the beating they only threaten him with the name of their boss. Which means that Deol must drag them to the boss' lair and demand said apology from him. Repeat cycle. This is the sort of structure that would have been conceived in an 80's Hong Kong martial arts caper, but it's entertaining given the over-the-top cartoony nature of the villains and the humor that comes from Deol commencing his 'idli' story at each level. Finally, he enters the stronghold where Ranatunga rules with his wife Bharathi (Regina Cassandra, clearly relishing the opportunity to play wicked). In a more than passing nod to the Ramayana, Deol rescues a bunch of lady cops (led by a mostly wasted Saiyami Kher) that had been imprisoned by the Ravana-worshiping Ranatunga.
Post-interval, as Deol makes his way to the police station with his rescued charges and we are treated to distasteful reprises of their harassment by the villains, Ranatunga launches a full-scale armed assault with bikes, jeeps and random explosions. More deaths occur, and we become privy to more icky flashbacks, one in which a teenage girl is stripped and assaulted by a senior cop working for Ranatunga. Like Toshiro Mifune's wandering ronin in Yojimbo, a disgusted Deol decides that this town is too rotten to allow to survive, and proceeds to burn it down two-handed, carrying only an armory of assault rifles, RPG launchers, harpoon guns(!), and oh, a military chopper.
There are minor diversions: You have Telugu stars Ramya Krishnan as the President and Jagapathi Babu as the hotshot CBI officer she sends to Andhra to solve the crisis, only to find it Deol-ized before he even gets there proper. There are allusions to land being captured at the behest of foreign powers to extract radioactive thorium as a valuable resource. Mahesh Limaye (once of Jogwa fame) has another crass Bollywood cameo in which he serves as a (loud) mouthpiece extolling the Jaat's badasserie. But Deol's entry as a Ram-like figure - on an Ayodhya bound train - and his fight with the evil Sri Lankan tyrant to rescue Indian womanhood, and the populace in general, is really where Jaat is at.
The action is bloody, but has a cartoony edge that makes it more palatable than a Marco (see how Ranatunga's troops move obligingly in single file so they can get jointly skewered by harpoons like shish kebabs). The sexual violence is more problematic, the inherent misogyny of mainstream Telugu cinema simply transcribed here. Too many gory flashbacks drag the pace while also piling on the ick-factor. However, Deol's ability to convey a sincerity that's naive without getting cloying means that whenever he is on screen, he lifts the film, gives it a little class.
