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Sunday, April 27, 2025
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BOLLYWOOD JISM 2
EDITOR'S PICK
Jism
2: Hooda shines in flick focussing on feelings, not bodies (IANS Hindi Film
Review)
Rating:
***
Nine
years after Jism gave us a new kind of heroine in Bipasha Basu who
emerged with erotic insouciance out of the water and headed straight for the hip
region, Jism 2 gives us a strangely inhibited porn-star heroine.
For those expecting a sex romp with the queen of adult content, Jism 2 is a bit
of a damper. There are three well-oiled bodies, two male and one female, caught
in the throes of an anguished do-or-die passion that can only burn itself out.
But sex is really not the solution for these wounded characters.
Director Pooja Bhatt aims to take her characters beyond their bodies. These are
seriously flawed people not afraid to scream out their outrage when life deals
them a particularly unfair blow.
But then, there we have it. Who said life was only about fair deals and perfect
bodies? The outer world of Pooja`s people is a Sri Lankan paradise lit up with
toasted beaches and enticing holiday resorts where time stops still. But
secreted in this idyllic setting are deep wounds of anger, resentment and
protest, all accumulated from years of unexpressed hurt.
Izna announces at the outset she is a porn star, not unlike the actress who
plays her. She wears the perfect clothes, travels business class and sleeps only
with the poshest men. She is now on to her riskiest client, a high-end terrorist
Kabir, played with an enigmatic wackiness by Randeep Hooda,whom the Indian
government, represented strangely by only two officers Arunodoy Singh and his
senior Arif Zakaria, wants dead or alive.
As luck would have it, Izna was once in love with Kabir. Now she must pretend to
be in love with him again. Perhaps because Ms Leone is new to dramatic acting,
we never quite understand how Izna feels about rekindling old passions with the
man who once loved her and then left her.
Is she still in love with him while pretending to be seducing him? Does she take
up the dangerous job in the subconscious hope of teaming up with him for life?
And when Kabir finally tells her a deep damning secret about the people she`s
working for she reacts so foolishly that we can only say working with the body
numbs the mind.
Just how much the confusion and inner chaos projected by Izna is actually Sunny
Leone`s is hard to tell. But like Sonam Kapoor in Sanjay Leela Bhansali`s Saawariya,
we often feel the character`s confusions to be suspiciously close to the
actress` own inability to grasp the complexities of her character.
On the plus side, Ms Leone often looks surprisingly vulnerable and wounded on
camera. She has a terrific pair of legs which she generally keeps crossed. The
bust is expressive too, yes. But she manages to keep us interested in more than
her physical assets.
Arunoday Singh as the man who leads Leone into the lion`s den (so to speak)
plays a role akin to Abhishek Bachchan`s in Dhoom 2. But a lot more
angst-ridden. He`s a man who falls in love with the honeytrap. Singh is not
fully able to express the character`s emotional turmoil. He is far more in
control doing action scenes.
Finally the film belongs to Randeep Hooda. As an assassin on the brink who
recites Ghalib in a voice that poets would envy, plays the cello and allows the
woman he loves to lead him to destruction, Hooda brings to his part a lacerated
hurt and a resonant retributive glory.
This is the actor`s second triumph in a Mahesh Bhatt script in a row after
Jannat 2. He plays the two self-destructive characters on different
scales, but equally effectively.If only Hooda had taken off all those religious
rings in his finger. They don`t go with his character.
The passion-play is underpinned by a whole lot of evocative background songs and
on-screen poetic utterances that remind us of the close relationship between
violence and art. What segregates the outcast from the messiah is the way the
talent of self-expression is channelised.
Hooda`s Kabir is genius gone the wrong way.
More dreamy than steamy, Jism 2 takes us far beyond the body
experience into three tortured souls looking for sensual salvation. Pooja Bhatt
delivers a good-looking film with an arresting inner life. This may not be the
right evening out for those who found last week`s Super Kool film
entertaining. But those who feel life in the movies is not always about the good
times, Jism 2 makes its point forcibly.
Actress-filmmaker Pooja Bhatt yearns to go back to the time when safety was a norm and people were "truly kind" to each other."Take me back... to times when life was more gracious, safety was a norm and people had the time to pause and be truly kind," Pooja tweeted on Sunday.Read More
Bollywood underrates me: Arunoday SinghActor Arunoday Singh, who has been a part of the Hindi film industry since 2009, feels his talent is under-utilised, and says Bollywood underrates him.Arunoday made his acting debut with "Sikandar" and later featured in films like "Yeh Saali Zindagi", "Mirch", Aisha", "Jism 2", "Main Tera Hero" and "Mohenjo Daro". He says it's very difficult to get films in which he plays the lead because he is not "wildly famous".Read More
Jism 2 is the sequel to the cult classic film Jism which was a blockbuster by Fish Eye Network (P) ltd and had starred John Abraham and Bipasha Basu in lead roles. The stakes have gotten bigger this time and we have 3 main leads this time round.
A porn star is hired by a dashing intelligence officer to become a `Honey-trap` for a dreaded assassin. In doing so, she not only has to confront her bitter-sweet past, but is also forced to make an impossible choice - one that will put her own life in double jeopardy.
Sunny Leone photo shoot to Promote her debut film Jism 2 Stills