Review : Jana

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Director : Shaji Kailas
Producer : Roja Combines
Music : Dhina
Cast : Ajit, Sneha, Raghuvaran, Siddique

The good news for Ajit fans is that his new film Jana is entertaining at least in the first half. The film starts off in an impressive way, presenting the hero in a new style and get-up and up to interval the story moves at a brisk pace with good action sequences and high voltage drama. But sadly the second half disappoints as the story goes haywire and plods to a predictable climax.

Director Shaji Kailas is well-known for making Mohanlal the ‘Rajnikanth of Kerala’ with his films like Aaram Thampuram and Narasimham where he was portrayed in roles that were larger-than-life. His style of film making is quite evident in the first half set in a village Thamarapadi near Coimbatore where Jana (Ajit) is a sort of demi-god for the villagers.

Jana is the darling of the villagers as he sorts out their vexing problems like water being taken by rich farmers like Radha Ravi who is hand in glove with the local MLA (Vinu Chakravarthy). Jana solves all problems in a non-violent way as he is stopped by his uncle (Delhi Ganesh) when he gets angry! Sure enough our hero has a past, shown with interspersed negatives of Mumbai city. Soon Manimeghala (Sneha) daughter of Radha Ravi comes to the village from Mumbai and she falls hook-line-sinker for the macho hero. But Jana is in no mood to romance and after a couple of dream songs; Mani is packed off by her father to Mumbai!

Post interval- Manimeghala comes to know that Jana the soft spoken do-gooder in the village was a leader of a gang who used to be the saviour for the poor and oppressed of Mumbai! Jana, son of a High Court judge (Raghuvaran) and Headmistress of a top school (Srividya) and has a brother an ACP (Manoj.K.Jayan) provides instant justice to whoever approaches him! Jana is a computer wizard during days and a Robinhood in the nights but his family is unaware of his activities! In one of those many such escapades Jana crosses sword with a terrorist Viswanathan Bhandari(Siddique) and his brother (Riaz Khan) who tried to smuggle arms and ammunitions. In the process Jana kills Riaz Khan and Bhandari takes revenge on Jana’s family.

What follows is a predictable climax when Jana turns a one-man-army to finish off Bhandari and gang. At the end you feel that you have seen two films as the characters like Manorama, Radha Ravi and even Sneha are missing in the second half. Nevertheless Ajit looks smashing in the first half with his crisp cotton white shirts and dhothi’s. His body language and mannerisms are top-class but as the story loses focus in the second half the characters lacks life and soul. Sneha provides the required sparkle but is there just for song ‘n’ dance. Villains Siddique, Riaz Khan, Radha Ravi, Baburaj and Rajan.P.Dev look like caricatures. Songs tuned by Dhina are average.

Neither great nor ghastly Jana packs in a sting but ends with a whimper and is strictly for the no-holds barred Ajit addicts.

Verdict:Average