Good Luck Jerry

Good Luck Jerry (2022) : Movie Review -

Janhvi Kapoor stars in the Hindi remake of Kolamaavu Kokila, which starred Nayanthara in the lead role. The first big question in my mind is how did Nayanthara fit in the role of a girl who wears a school uniform? I still wonder how critics and audiences accepted that? The original wasn't a great flick itself, yet some filmmakers in the Hindi cinema fraternity thought about remaking it. God knows why? Or maybe they liked it too much. Hopefully, the latter one makes sense. Good Luck Jerry erased that first big question for me about age and look as Janhvi perfectly fits for that role with 13 years of age difference between her and Nayanthara. What about the rest of the film? Well, the answer is negative. I hope this puts an end to raining remakes in Bollywood. Kolamaavu Kokila worked for South audiences, for some unspeakable reasons, but it was never supposed to work for the Hindi audiences and the makers knew it. The main reason behind its direct OTT release is not a secret to anybody.

The film is about Jerry (Janhvi Kapoor) and her family. Jerry joins a drug smuggling racket to earn quick money for her mother's Lung cancer, but the consequence puts her and her family in danger. Jerry gets deeper into gangsters racket with every next step and finds new challenges to protect her family. If you have seen the original, then you know what happens in the climax. But if you haven't, let's not spoil the fun for others. The script of Good Luck Jerry offers nothing different from Kolamaavu Kokila, except for a few changes in the climax. A couple of scenes have been trimmed, while some are added as extras to make the climax longer.

Janhvi Kapoor is yet to crack a memorable role in her career and the wait continues with Good Luck Jerry. However, she is not bad here. Somehow she is missing something amazing in the roles and performances, be it Dhadak, Gunjan Saxena, Roohi or now Good Luck Jerry. The real show stealer in this film is Deepak Dobriyal. He is damn funny, unstoppable and you'll want to see more of him. But sadly the film doesn't give you that. His role is smaller than what you demand. Mita Vashisht has acted beautifully in a few scenes, Saurabh Sachdeva is decent and Sushant Singh's accent only sounds good. The supporting cast hasn't got many acting-driven roles, but they bring fun and fulfilment in the comedy.

The same questions which remained unanswered in Kokila's tale have been copied here too. One of the biggest faults I believe was that the writer used co-incidences as conflicts of a masterplan. You can't plan coincidences, and you can't get away with the excuse of cinematic liberty for that. One of two coincidences is okay but not many. Whether it was Kokila or Good Luck Jerry, you see, the family was in danger many times, they could have been killed many times, but every time it was a miss. Because we know the basic formula that the protagonist's family can't be hurt. They can survive many bullets, while the people on the other will be dead with just one bullet or mistaken action. Good Luck Jerry also deals with the humour very poorly.

The dark comedy genre needs more quality stuff, rather than this regional humoured film with below the belt jokes. Remember those classic British crime comedies from the 50s which set the landmark, and then some film in the 90s also made a mark. Forget upper level Hollywood and British cinema, look at Tamil Cinema's own "Soodhu Kavvum" (2013). How funny and humorous that film was. We need more films like it. The humour value in Kokila or Jerry's world is too cheap and cheesy compared to what I am talking about. The film starts with a "Jhandwa" song and how irritating and useless it was. Not just that one song but almost all the songs in the film have spoiled the narrative. Some dialogues are really hilarious while some are too creepy. Mostly crime comedies are for adults only, so there's no issue about it.

Sidharth Sengupta makes his feature film debut with a sort of wanna be good film. I would have loved to say only 'good film,' but that's not the case here. He uses the technical team and his cast members well enough to carry you throughout the ride. However, it's a very long ride and pretty tedious too. The same script would have looked so good in 2 hours? I wonder,.why nobody thought about it. Hotstar is bringing too many remakes, and most of them are watchable. Good Luck Jerry adds one more copy-pasted folder into Hotstar's library, but it's not for the regular readers who have gone through all kinds of global and regional cinema. Moreover, it's not made for the masses, then I really don't know what the Target audience is for this film and how they are looking to make it a hit with such a low profile CV for the less number of vacancies. Overall, Good Luck Jerry is watchable for those who enjoy low level jokes and tricks, while those who have seen the original can stay away from it.

RATING - 4/10*