'Jogi' review: Melodramatic retelling of a tragedy

Jogi

Hindi (Netflix)

Director: Ali Abbas Zafar

Cast: Diljit Dosanjh, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, Kumud Mishra

Rating: 2.5/5

Telling a story of standing up for morals against the backdrop of something terrible has an enormous potential to succeed. But it won’t work unless the writer, and director blend the backdrop and the story sensibly and sensitively. Unfortunately, Ali Abbas Zafar’s (‘Gunday’, ‘Sultan’ fame) new film ‘Jogi’ falls right onto this flipside.

‘Jogi’ narrates the story of three conscientious friends of different faiths joining hands in a dangerous effort to save Sikh people in Delhi during the Anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984. But the film totally fails in getting into the psychology of the bloodthirst that led to the organised pogrom of Sikh community. It plays safe in naming the perpetrators as it just has cursory references to the ‘party’.

By just showing veiled rioters backed by a power hungry neta as the main reason behind pogrom, the film makes it clear that it is not interested in the politics of the events but only in the safe domains of moral uprightness, friendships, and romance.

Not dwelling much on the politics would have been still fine if the film at least had got its acts, emotions and drama right. But here the melodrama takes the film farther from the reality, making it neither a taut evacuation thriller nor a moving portrayal of pogrom.

Diljit Dosanjh as the protagonist Joginder is at its usual best with a range of emotions at his disposal. His acting capabilities are on full display especially in a scene where he had to remove the turban and chop off his hair. But rest of the characters do not feel as if they belong to the film, even though they are played by seasoned actors like Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, Kumud Mishra and others. The romance episode is pat and contrived.

The core content of ‘Jogi’ had the potential of becoming another ‘Schindler’s List’ or ‘Argo’ but its over reliance on melodrama takes it close to a grotty soap opera.