Film: Jhund

Cast: Amitabh Bachchan

Director: Nagraj Manjule

Rating: 4 Moons

In his Bollywood debut directorial, National Award-winning Marathi actor-director Nagraj Manjule takes the revered megastar, Amitabh Bachchan, down to congested slum bylanes of Nagpur to form a football team that will represent India globally. One must call them ‘Team’ and not ‘Jhund’. Plucking a chapter from a retired sports teacher named Vijay Barse’s life, Jhund orbits around Vijay Borade (Amitabh Bachchan) who takes up the responsibility of giving a bunch of slum youth a purpose to live. 

On the cusp of retirement, Vijay Borade is in no mood to hang up his boots. Breaking barriers of class indifference, he ventures into a slum, which is right behind his St John’s College and brings together slum dwellers to play football and lures them into quitting crime and drugs by offering them Rs 500 per day after a round of football every evening. In a quest to make some quick bucks, the “Jhopad Patti Jhund” accepts Borade’s offer and the game gradually drives them away from petty criminal activities they indulged in to lead a happy, secure and safe life. 

While the first half of Jhund makes you believe it is a regular sports drama, Nagraj, Mr. Bachchan and the entire cast spring up a surprise by refraining from going the typical Bollywood way. Making it a story of human behaviour, the real-life story sheds light on the caste divide, societal judgments, class and economic differences.

Shot in Nagpur’s narrow slums, Nagraj shows class with the help of a wall that guards the elite world of educated and wealthy families against slum dwellers. In one scene, when the gate that separates both worlds opens, the director highlights the urge of the underprivileged to lead a normal life erasing the barriers that society once created for them.  

Starting a conversation about the economic indifference and lack of awareness among the illiterates, Jhund draws attention to the loopholes in the Indian civic system. In the second half of Jhund, when the slum dwellers-turned-football players apply for passports to play an international match, the character of Rinku Rajguru faces trouble in getting her documents in place and completing the digital procedure. That’s when the lens of Director Of Photography Sudhakar Yakkanti Reddy emphasizes on a banner that reads, “Digital India-Power To Empower”.

Like his previous films, Fandry and Sairat being the most popular ones, Nagraj attempts to show grassroots problems, politics, aspirations, dreams and struggles. His characters, though, live in narrow-laned slums, have uncivilised behaviour, their attitude and confidence is way too large and so is their willpower to get out of slums, end their problems and support their families even if that means taking up odd jobs. In a runtime of 179 minutes, Jhund takes us through these Jhopad Patti gallis and how these young boys and girls cross all the set ‘boundaries’ with football as the medium.

Giving power to his co-stars, there could have been no better person than Amitabh Bachchan to play Vijay Borade. Exploring Nagraj’s world of underprivileged and caste indifference, Mr. Bachchan commands complete attention but without overshadowing his reel-life students. Refusing to accept retirement as the end of his football career, he tackles financial problems at home while dealing with his son’s opposition. Mr. Bachchan teams up with Nagraj to tell a beautiful, memorable and heart-melting tale of human struggle. After his popular monologue in Pink that shook the audience will his cry of ‘No Means No’, his monologue in Jhund creates a similar impact but with a different context. 

Among the slum dwellers, the character of Don aka Ankush Masram (Ankush Gedam) shines bright. His vulnerabilities, impulsiveness and struggle make for a perfect character graph that adds weight to the climax drama. Rinku Rajguru as Monica Gedam appears in the second half of Jhund and leaves behind an impact. Her Sairat co-star Akash Thosar joins her as Sambhya but in a brief yet significant role.

DoP Reddy captures Nagpur slums in their true element. Editors Kutub Inamdar and Vaibhav Dabhade do a fantastic job on the edit table. Music by Ajay-Atul is pulsating but not foot-tapping and memorable like Sairat or any of their previous works.

Jhund ends with a scene where an aeroplane carrying Vijay Borade and his team to their international destination flies above the hutments of the slum area, the camera focuses on a disclaimer posted on the wall that reads, ‘Crossing the wall is prohibited. Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted.’ That's what Jhund should be remembered for and not as a sports film or a biopic.

PeepingMoon gives Jhund 4 Moons