Satya has been running from window to window in the anteroom of a maximum security prison. She’s desperate to see her brother before closing time, but there are forms to fill, procedures to follow. Finally, she ends up at the door to the visiting area, wheezing, frantic. The guard does her a kindness, says she isn’t late and will be let in soon. Satya catches her breath, but can’t wipe the worry off. “Do I look sad?” she asks the guard as she’s about to enter. “Little sad,” he replies in Malay-accented English. She puts on a strained smile. “Now?” The guard shakes his head. “Very sad, lah.”
Earlier in his career, Vasan Bala wouldn’t have stopped for this scene. His second and third films, Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota (2018) and Monica, O My Darling (2022), are fantastically entertaining, high-energy genre tributes that often skirt pastiche (I haven’t seen his first, the unreleased Peddlers). It isn’t a criticism to say there isn’t a soul-searching character in either; these films have no need of one. But with his fourth film, Bala, like Satya, takes a breath. Jigra operates within the bounds of the prison break genre, but isn’t beholden to it. The result is something richer and more affecting than we’ve seen from him till now.
On a business trip to Hanshi Dao, a fictional southeast Asian nation resembling Singapore, Ankur (Vedang Raina) and his partner, Kabir, are stopped for a traffic violation. Kabir has a small bag of cocaine on him, and matters quickly escalate. Back in India, Kabir’s father pulls strings to get him out. But Ankur remains, and is sentenced, as per the stringent local law, to death. His only hope is already on a flight to him, watching the 1990 Agneepath and shoveling food back with the singlemindedness of someone gearing up for war.
As the runaway in Highway (2014), Alia Bhatt, slight of build, small voice, seemed natural casting for someone in need of protection. But in the decade since, she’s gravitated towards self-assured characters and then towards those who offer protection themselves. Satya is the fullest expression of this, set up from the first scene as her younger brother’s fearless defender. She extends this tough love to others as well. There’s a scene early on where she literally slaps sense into a groom about to make a big mistake on his wedding day—but she makes him cover his face with his hands before she hits him, a gesture that speaks to her blend of fierceness, consideration and practicality.
Satya flails around in Hanshi Dao, looking for a legal way out. She meets Bhatia (Manoj Pahwa), a self-described ‘retired gangster’, whose son, Tony, is also on death row in the same prison. Together, they decide that, given the impending sentences, the only option is a jail break. Muthu (Rahul Ravindran), a former local cop with a heavy conscience, becomes a reluctant third member of their conspiracy.
Unlike his earlier films, which were studded with set pieces, Bala, writing here with Debashish Irengbam, keeps Jigra pent-up for the longest time. We see the prisoners make their own plans—Ankur has struck up a friendship with Tony and another inmate, Rayyan—and deal with a sadistic warden (Vivek Gomber). It’s a genre requirement, perhaps, but a caricature, this jailer with a silly Malay accent and named Hans Raj Landa. Hans doesn’t speak or seem to understand Hindi, which makes me wonder why an Indian actor was needed at all. It’s the one significant misstep (a minor one is establishing Satya’s bona fides too many times) in an otherwise tightly constructed film. Very little is wasted that is introduced, from a song on shuffle to the revolutionary slogan Satya hears at a rally.
Nineties kids might be reminded of Gumrah, in which Sridevi finds herself in a Hong Kong jail after she's framed for drug trafficking—though Jigra only resembles Mahesh Bhatt's film up till a point. Bala’s cinephilic tributes get away from him at times: ‘Hans Raj Landa’ should never have survived the second draft, and having prisoners named John Woo and Wong Kar-wai is almost as bad. But I did like two nods that felt personal. If it isn’t clear that Satya is named for the titular character (an orphan like her) in Ram Gopal Varma’s 1998 gangster film, Muthu saying “dum hai” after she bests him in a fight confirms this. And it’s touching to see Manoj Pahwa in a ‘Urf Professor’ t-shirt, an unreleased film from 2000 by the late Pankaj Advani in which he played the lead.
When the film finally explodes, the blaze just keeps going. Bala uses a bit of everything—slo-mo, bodycam, smoke bombs, blackouts, fistfights, shootouts—but to good effect. The sustained aria-like action only works because the actors have been so emotionally wrought, not just Bhatt and Raina but Pahwa, Ravindran and Ankur Khanna, excellent as Rayyan. By the time ‘Yaari Hai Imaan’ played, I had a lump in my throat. Bala’s last film was a digital-only release. What a relief this one isn’t. Jigra was meant to be seen large.
