Satyameva Jayate Review[1/5]: John Abraham and Manoj Bajpayee Fail To Raise The Bar Of An Otherwise Sincere Storyline

When was the last time we saw a common man stand against corruption in a Hindi movie? Umpteen times before one would say! And the recent outing ‘Satyameva Jayate’, starring John Abraham and Manoj Bajpayee is no different from the rest. It falls in the same league; except for the fact that this one tries too hard to cut across its subtle message. Director Milap Zaveri takes it upon himself to prove his point albeit with a difference, but with all the heavy dialogue-baazi and over-the-top action sequences, his movie does not lead you anywhere.

The film begins with Virendra Kumar Singh aka Veer (John Abraham), a vigilante cop-killer in Maximum City, who loves to bring corrupt policemen to the book, hoping to eliminate corruption from its roots from the country. Only his ways are a bit too gory. Whenever a police officer is committing a crime somewhere, Veer is there with his matchbox to catch him red-handed. He beats up the officer, chants a few Sanskrit shlokas and then sets the man ablaze for all his crimes. He then wipes his hands off the arson and blends in with the society so skillfully that not one person can point the needle of suspicion to him. And in between all this, he also finds the time to romantically involve himself with a vet named Shikha (Aisha Sharma), who has her hands in many pies, which project her as the perfect picture of compassion.

We then get to know that Veer has actually had a troubled past. His upright and honest cop-father was humiliated by his own corrupt colleagues and then set on fire, for he decided to speak out against them and refused to side with them. As a result, Veer, holding past grudges, is now on the prowl, determined to eliminate the khaki vardi-clad men, who wrong the society at every step.

When top officials have had enough of their men bring burned to a crisp, they cut short DCP Shivansh Rathod’s (Manoj Bajpayee) holiday and put him on the case of capturing the serial killer on the loose. Rathod is the epitome of honesty and probably the only man, who swears by his honour in the entire police force. He quickly sets about his task at hand, mouthing some tough lines with a quirky sense of humour laced to them. But does he succeed?

John Abraham has been producing as well as acting in movies on a very regular basis in recent times. And that has probably affected his sense of selecting movies. Write any kind of character for him (read good or bad) and he ends up playing the macho man, breaking bad boys’ bones and keeping the villains in check by use of brawn rather than his brain. It’s time he came out of his comfort zone and tried his hand at other genres as well. Though he has done a good job with this one, ripping off a truck tyre or ripping apart the doors of cars, doing it all with all his ‘force’, is not what one wants to see each time. His role as a lover boy by day and a vigilante hunter by night out to make amends, is not very well etched and he only cuts across a sorry figure.

Manoj Bajpayee, too, has begun to become stereotyped now. The powerhouse of talent is reduced to catching the baddie in almost every alternate movie of his and that is not what is expected of him. His face-offs with Abraham, his quick thinking as the top cop, his brilliant acting and his witty yet scathing one-liners are the highlight of the film, yet it feels like there is something amiss in this action thriller.

Model-turned-actress Aisha Sharma has a long way to go. She needs diction lessons and quite a few acting tips, else she will fall in the long list of actors that are forgotten post their first big-screen release. Amruta Khanvilkar as Manoj Bajpayee’s wife does not have enough scope. Marathi TV artist Devdatta Nage and multi-lingual actor Tota Roy Chowdhury are simply wasted.

As for the technical department, ‘Satyameva Jayate’ has a background score that tries to invoke deshbhakti, but only ends up jarring your eardrums with its loud tones. Also, the appearance of the Tiranga that keeps waving in scene after scene does nothing to up your feeling of patriotism. The film has many scenes shot at night and that becomes too tedious to watch after a certain point of time. Songs are out of place and the dialogues sometimes do not make any sense. However, the only best part is the action choreography, which defies gravity and logic, but is enjoyable.

All in all, the premise of the film is relevant to today’s times, but the message is not delivered effectively. And despite Norah Fatehi gyrating sensuously to the rehashed version of Dilbar dilbar, ‘Satyameva Jayate’ is only a sinking boat.

Eventznu Rates Satyameva Jayate : *