Nine years after “Jism” gave us a brand new roughly heroine in Bipasha Basu who emerged with erotic insouciance out of the water and headed straight for the hip region, “Jism 2″ gives us a strangely inhibited porn-star heroine.
For those expecting a sex romp with the queen of adult content, Jism 2 is just a little a damper. There are three well-oiled bodies, two male and one female, caught within the throes of an anguished do-or-die passion that may only burn itself out. But sex is truly not the answer for these wounded characters.
Director Pooja Bhatt aims to take her characters beyond their bodies. These are seriously flawed people not afraid to scream out their outrage when life deals them an especially unfair blow.
But then, there we've it. Who said life was only about fair deals and ideal bodies? The outer world of Pooja’s people is a Sri Lankan paradise lit up with toasted beaches and enticing holiday resorts where time stops still. But secreted on this idyllic setting are deep wounds of anger, resentment and protest, all accumulated from years of unexpressed hurt.
Izna announces on the outset she is a porn star, not unlike the actress who plays her. She wears the easiest clothes, travels business class and sleeps only with the poshest men. She is now directly to her riskiest client, a high-end terrorist Kabir, played with an enigmatic wackiness by Randeep Hooda,whom the Indian government, represented strangely by only two officers Arunodoy Singh and his senior Arif Zakaria, wants dead or alive.
As luck would have it, Izna was in love with Kabir. Now she must pretend to be in love with him again. Perhaps because Ms Leone is new to dramatic acting, we never quite know how Izna feels about rekindling old passions with the person who once loved her after which left her.
Is she still in love with him while pretending to be seducing him? Does she absorb the damaging job within the subconscious hope of teaming up with him for all times? And when Kabir finally tells her a deep damning secret concerning the people she’s working for she reacts so foolishly that we will be able to only say working with the body numbs the mind.
Just how much the confusion and inner chaos projected by Izna is definitely Sunny Leone’s is tricky to inform. But like Sonam Kapoor in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s “Saawariya”, we frequently feel the character’s confusions to be suspiciously just about the actress’ own inability to know the complexities of her character.
On the plus side, Ms Leone often looks surprisingly vulnerable and wounded on camera. She has an important pair of legs which she generally keeps crossed. The bust is expressive too, yes. But she manages to maintain us all for greater than her physical assets.
Arunoday Singh because the man who leads Leone into the lion’s den (as a way to speak) plays a job similar to Abhishek Bachchan’s in “Dhoom 2″. But much more angst-ridden. He’s a person who falls in love with the honeytrap. Singh isn't fully capable of express the character’s emotional turmoil. He's way more on top of things doing action scenes.
Finally the film belongs to Randeep Hooda. As an assassin at the brink who recites Ghalib in a voice that poets would envy, plays the cello and allows the lady he likes to lead him to destruction, Hooda brings to his part a lacerated hurt and a resonant retributive glory.
This is the actor’s second triumph in a Mahesh Bhatt script in a row after “Jannat 2″. He plays the 2 self-destructive characters on different scales, but equally effectively.If only Hooda had taken off all those religious rings in his finger. They don’t go along with his character.
The passion-play is underpinned by loads of evocative background songs and on-screen poetic utterances that remind us of the close relationship between violence and art. What segregates the outcast from the messiah is the best way the talent of self-expression is channelised.
Hooda’s Kabir is genius gone the inaccurate way.
More dreamy than steamy, “Jism 2″ takes us far beyond the body experience into three tortured souls on the lookout for sensual salvation. Pooja Bhatt delivers a good-looking film with an arresting inner life. This would possibly not be the proper evening out for many who found last week’s “Super Kool” film entertaining. But folks that feel life within the movies isn't always concerning the good times, “Jism 2″ makes its point forcibly. – IANS
