Carry On Jatta 2

CARRYING ON THE LEGACY OF A LAUGH RIOT

Story: An orphan smitten with dreams of going to Canada, Jass (Gippy Grewal) falls for NRI girl Meet (Sonam Bajwa), at a wedding. But Meet has one wish, of marrying a guy with a big family. Jass connives with his scheming friend Honey (Gurpreet Ghuggi), to con Meet into thinking he has a big family. To achieve this, he piggybacks his lawyer landlord Dhillon (Jaswinder Bhalla) and his son Goldy (Binnu Dhillon), who have a family and a home. What follows is a series of hilarious confusions about real relationships, arising out of this con.

Review: A sequel that took six years to make, has proved itself worth the wait. With comic situations arising out of mistaken identities and conned relations, the film has safely based its formula for success on the same premise as its prequel, comedy of errors. The lead plot is the exact opposite of the first film, and the sequel draws its story from the female lead searching for a home full of people after marriage. This is contrary to the first film’s leading lady Mahie (Mahie Gill), who wants to marry a man without a family.

With the protagonist, Jass finding desperate measures to pursue his ambition of going abroad, marrying an NRI seems the easiest. And when he finds a willing lady in Meet, he only has to clear one obstacle, that of finding a family to call his own. However, this only obstacle also becomes the most challenging for him, and is also the theme of the plot, leading up to mix-ups and cover-ups about who is Dhillon’s actual son and Meet’s real husband. While most of Punjabi cinema relies on comedy to call their shots, Carry On Jatta franchise has taken its comedy to a more refined level, breaking the clutter of predictable timings and jaded dialogues.

As Jass colludes with his wily friend Honey, to conceive a family for the orphaned protagonist, therein is the situational comedy. Meet and Dhillon are being tricked by Jass and Dhillon’s own son Goldy, to promote the love, and NRI interest of his friend Jass.

Flaunting a stellar line-up of Punjabi cinema’s comedians- Jaswinder Bhalla, Gurpreet Ghuggi, Binnu Dhillon, Karamjit Anmol, BN Sharma, the film is a mad riot of quick wit, sharp dialogues and amusing analogies. With Carry On Jatta 1 having become a cult classic, the sequel steals that recognition solely due to its technical progresses. Neat editing, absorbing script, crisp dialogue delivery- the onus of which is equally shared by Binnu, Jaswinder and Ghuggi- and tight frames, hardly allow the mind to wander off elsewhere. Karamjit, who plays the bumbling brother-in-law of Dhillon, is refreshing in experimentation of looks and dialect. Sonam (Bajwa) has come a long way from her previous films. Despite not contributing significantly to the progress of the script in the way her character is etched- an inherent male bias of Punjabi industry, her portrayal of an NRI girl marks the beginning of true depiction of modern Punjabi girls, in her glamorous costumes and refreshing looks.

Overall, the film is a complete family package, with humour engaging audiences all through its two and half hours.