The phrase ‘contempt of court’ may mean something in the real world, but in The State vs. Jolly LL.B 2 — a fitting film title once you mull over it — it means nothing. For a motion picture, there are far more creative solutions than used by its filmmaker. Let me elaborate:

Court scene: Justice Sunderlal Tripathi (Saurabh Shukla) has had enough of the defence lawyer’s shenanigans. The defence campaign, rebelling against the judge’s decision, opts for a ‘dharna’. Sunderlal, in response to the retaliation, starts a non-violent sit-in of his own — opposite the defence lawyer’s. So the people in the small smelly court room with walls of files of unresolved cases and a crumbling paintjob decide to willingly sit until the court makes a decision. At that moment Jolly LL.B 2, which stars Akshay Kumar as the ‘other’ Jolly (ergo: the 2 in the title because he is not the same guy) finds his real hero: Sunderlal.

Sunderlal is one of the two recurring characters from Jolly LL.B, the earlier installment of the movie which starred Arshad Warsi. In it, he was a justice in a civil court who dealt with a rich man’s son’s hit-and-run case. Here, he has to deal with a case of mistaken identity. As a judge he is rigid, intelligent and disarmingly warm and cuddly — until one crosses the limits of his authority. This is where he loses it, and the film’s entertainment level starts spiking.

Jolly LL.B 2 has a more popular lead actor than the original film but a weaker script

Perfectly tuned by Shukla in the first film, Sunderlal is faced with two emotional issues: his daughter’s looming wedding and the fact that he is living the worst déjà vu of his life. He has to contend with a cocky, on-the-ball, rookie lawyer (the new Jolly) against an unbeatable and expensive defence lawyer Pramod Mathur (Annu Kapoor) who will use every trick in the book to get his client – a corrupt police officer — off the hook. Mathur’s fee for the job is five million. Jolly’s is two hundred thousand — and a grief-stricken conscience.

In the first movie, Warsi’s Jolly uses the case as a ploy for his two minutes of fame. He is, however, never emotionally invested in the cause. In Jolly LL.B 2, Kumar’s character is burdened with a young woman’s death which he unintentionally triggered. The woman, Hina (the mesmerising Sayani Gupta) was the pregnant wife of Iqbal Qasim (Manav Kaul) — a regular guy whose family name is falsely relabeled from Qasim to Qadri, making his case one of mistaken identity. The evidence is circumstantial and full of loopholes, and the ensuing court case is nothing short of a mockery.

Screenwriter and director Subhash Kapoor works with a more popular lead actor and a weaker script. The combination is not really unforeseen, especially when sequels and big stars come into play. Kumar’s Jolly, first introduced as a sharp attorney, doesn’t ask the right questions, and his opponent — a very fine, yet two-dimensional Annu Kapoor — never uses the law to his advantage. “I ask straightforward questions,” he arrogantly screams at least three times in the film. His proclamation is a superficial assertion of what we should think of his character, not what his character ought to be.

Herein lies Jolly LL.B 2’s obvious shortcoming. Jolly, his loving wife (Huma Qureshi, quite ‘ahem’ healthy, and illogically made into a drunk, uncaring mother), his cause to bear arms and fight the good fight, and Mathur’s half thought-out boisterousness in court are crafted for a paisa-wasool project. The first Jolly, in comparison, was original and fresh in characters, situations and Kapoor’s direction.

In some ways, Jolly LL.B 2 is a second generation facsimile of the first. It gets your attention, is decidedly lightweight in its human cause, and has merely adequately-placed dialogue to engage the audience. An Akshay Kumar-starrer always has dialogue befitting his audience’s expectation — the way he acts and delivers his lines are similar to applause-worthy quips expected of Arnold Schwarzenegger in any of his movies.

Despite the screenplay’s tenuousness (and the very bad soundtrack), Kumar’s star power is enough to make the film work. And, of course, there’s Shukla’s Sunderlal. This reviewer (or anyone who has seen both films) would love to see him again in Jolly LL.B 3 — hopefully, this time with both the Jollies and a sturdier, more persuasive screenplay.

Published in Dawn, ICON, February 19th, 2017