Cast: Ajay Devgn, Sonakshi Sinha, Yami Gautam, Manasvi Mamgai

Direction: Prabhudheva

Rating: *1/2 Stars

There is no denying the fact that when its about gauging the entertainment potency of a movie which has some iconic names associated with it. Then it doubles the responsibility of a reviewer to keep a thorough tab even on the minutest perspective of the same. But the task become even more herculean when you are confronted with a star studded cine delight from which you have a great expectation and it turns out to be as disastrous as one can't even expect.

But as every profession has its own set of occupational hazards, so is the case of with movie reviewing where you have to meekly tolerate a cinematic mockery and its slaughtering your sanity. And this week its Prabhu Deva's Ajay Devgn, Sonakshi Sinha, Yami Gautam et al starrer "Action Jackson" which has also joined the bandwagon of "Himmatwala" and "Humshakals".

The premise of "Action Jackson" is about a good hearted 'Gali Ka Robinhood', Vishy (Ajay Devgn) who in order to makes both end meet picks some street fights with local goons and is often accompanied by his glutton side kick, Moosa (Kunal Roy Kapoor". With frames rolling ahead Vishy's life takes a massive twist when he has rendezvous with a luckless media professional, Khushi (Sonakshi Sinha) who starts chasing Vishy to catch him semi naked because after some favorable changes taking place in her life she is convinced that Vishy's half-naked presence around her is responsible for her changing fortunes. Sounds super weird huh?


But hold it there is much more ahead to add to the weirdness of this fatuous cine concept....And the most unfortunate part is that you have to cope up with this insanity for entire first half.

With this saga of weirdness proceeding ahead appears the a don, Xavier Fonseca (Anand Raj) who resides in Bangkok and is in search of, Jay aka AJ (Ajay Devgn ) who by profession is a killer and is incidentally a doppelganger of Vishy. And Xavier is on hunt for Jay because his (Xavier's) sister Marina (Manasvi) is highly obsessed with AJ. So in order to get his sister the biggest happiness of her life Xavier's men are out there to search Jay and kill his lady love Anusha (Yami). With frames rolling ahead Jay and Vishy has a rendezvous where former devises a plan to eliminate Xavier and his sister. So what follows next, to know you have to watch this much anticipated cine cantata of Prabhu Deva.

Well after seeing so many remakes of the southern blockbusters, I guess now there is no point in cribbing about this ongoing Tsunami of borrowed ideas, where our Bollywooders either buy the rights of Southern blockbusters or re-craft them after giving them a mild spin in order to suite the entertainment needs of Hindi cineasts.

So here is another name added to the list i.e. of "Action Jackson" which is apparently a remake of southern hit "Dookusu". Albeit this cine artistry of Prabhu, of remaking southern blockbusters, worked for him in the past where he delivered some of the greatest crowd charmers like "Wanted", "Rowdy Rathore" and even "R...Rajkumar", but this time he seems to have got ditched by the idea.

That's because, despite being an inspired plot, the premise of "Action Jackson" looks like an outdated cinematic chimera or rather "partridge and quail cross breeded" kind of cine narration which is created while being in a state of deliriousness.


As soon as the narration of "Action Jackson" takes off it straight-away starts bothering you with its logic defying stodgy content. In-fact it won't be wrong to say that sans anything heart or mind quenching in it first half of the "Action Jackson" is tediously overstretched, where everything looks redundant and topsy-turvy.

Albeit Prabhu tried to add some pleasantness to both the halves by incorporating some Carnatic or rather Kollywod styled cinematic analogies, but as now that idea too has become as old as mountains, hence even that didn't works for the movie.

Besides what adds to the plight of the viewers is the dichotomy prevailing between the two halves, which up till great extent gives an impression that both the halves are the standalone features and have been compulsively attached to each other, to look like a single cine spectacle.

Probably the entire concept or the premise of "Action Jackson" would have looked great on papers to its makers, but in reality it turns out be as disastrous as one can expect, where it has nothing except obnoxious characters, weird dance routines, numerous inane situations sans any entertainment, Kollywood styled action sequences, raucous music and a few below the belt gags. So on narration front "Action Jackson" is a BIG looser.

Even the screenplay of "Action Jackson" has got a high degree of parity to the narration, where it copiously adds to the amount of disaster created by the story-line. One of the major flaws in the screenplay is its inability to induce that Bollywoodian feel in "Action Jackson", which through out its run time looks like a dubbed Kollywoodian cine enterprise staring some of the renowned faces of B-town.


Be it action, humor (the two vacuous pillars of "Action Jackson") or character perspicuity or even the appending of various components of the movie. Everything has been done with so much of grudging, that there exists not even a single moment where you can utter a word of praise about the movie.

On one hand its poppycock first half which takes ages to unfurl and on the other it's the ratiocination defying second half which makes viewers feel like sitting in a precarious circle.

Though through out the run time efforts of Prabhu and Vijay Kumar Arora of making "Action Jackson" a believable cine delight looks quite conspicuous, but I guess the duo forgot the basic decree of cinematic volumes that is "excess of everything is bad". And it's this howler on their part which mounts some extra load on this already sinking vessel called "Action Jackson".

Action sequences of S Ravi Varma are somewhat better, but carries a thorough fragrance of Kollywood. Editing of Bunty Nagi is again a big let down, courtesy absence of logic or any intellectual hard work.

Background score of Sandeep Chowta is too loud and absolutely inapt for the spirit of the movie. In fact it looks like an aural chunk inspired from some Ramsay cine venture.


With not even a single aural delight to handpick from the deck, music of Himesh is again something which could have been avoided.

As far as performances are concerned, then let me make it very clear right at the onset that, besides stodgy story-line and applesauce screenplay its the folderol casting which greatly overshadows relatively OK performances of Ajay, whom I don't know how and why opted to be the part of this sickening cine chronicle.

Although Ajay is one of the most bankable star of Bollywood, but here in "Action Jackson" even this otherwise sinewy performer looks like being in a state of confusion. Though the man tries to save this deviating cine ship of Prabu Deva, but due to the prevalence of gross ambiguity in character perspicuity and story-line even he fails in doing so.

Sonakshi is no different from her previous cine avatars and rather looks slightly below average. Yami Gautam in an extended cameos of sort is unnecessarily casted and is totally wasted. That's because the type of character she plays and amount of screen presence she has any other other B-grader could have done the similar job for "Action Jackson". Anandraj the leading antagonist too fails in inducing any emotion and is again a case of perfect miscasting.


Manasvi the debutant beauty tries to look convincing in the robe of a psychotic, but alas! she ends up looking like a mere glamorous eye candy who has nothing much to prove with her acting skills.

To sum up, it looks like now after seeing the fettle of "Ramaiya Vastavaiya" and "Action Jackson" it's high time for Prabhu to have a reality check. And instead of coming up with such "half partridge and half quail" kind of cine narration the man should try to do what he is best at. Same goes for Ajay too, because after having hit like "Singham Returns" in his kitty there is no need to resuscitate the "Himmatwala" debacles again and again.

And if we talk about Action Jackson then its "obnoxious characters, weird dance routines, lunatic situations, raucous music, Kollywood styled action sequences and below the belt gags NA TO DIL MEIN AATE HAIN NAA DIMAAG MEIN". Hence keeping in view the kind of inane content which "Action Jackson" has, I am going ahead with 1.5 out of 5 for this birdbrained cine cantata which is "unpardonably bad" and "neither has contentment nor entertainment but only carries punishment, obviously for viewers.