Jogi- Movie Review #KarishmaCurrentlyWatching

Jogi Poster

The movie follows the events in aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination who authorizes Operation Blue Star to remove Damdami Taksal, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and their followers from the buildings of the Golden Temple. Upon her assassination by her Sikh bodyguards, there was a wave of anti sikh riots across the nation but particularly Delhi.

This story is of a man Joginder (Diljit Dosanj) and his allies a Police Officer Rawinder Chautala (Mohd. Zeeshan Ayyub) and a friend Kaleem Ansari (Paresh Pahuja) who from different faiths unite to save lives of many people. Joginder lost everything in the riots where people were burnt on the streets, their homes were also not spared. He plans an evacuation of all his neighbour Sikhs to Mohali and receives help from his two friends. This journey has a lot of hurdles most of which was created by the local Councillor Tejpal Arora (Kumud Mishra) who takes advantage of these adversities to move up in the ranks. He clearly instructs the police officers to kill all the Sikhs for reward money and not help them even if they call in police control room and also provides incentives like all the loot from Sikhs’ homes can be kept for themselves. He provides them with a voter list marked with ‘S’ for Sikh to locate and eliminate them.

Jogi as a movie then shows the inhumane acts done against the Sikh and bravado of Jogi and his friends who against all odds try to save the people and do the right thing. There were times when Rawinder dismisses the orders given to him by Tejpal and risks his life for the mission. The movie also has a love angle which introduces Laali Katiyal (Hiten Tejwani) into the picture, who is estranged from Jogi and is hell bent on finding him and stopping his rescue mission. Jogi and Laali’s relationship has a past which is the love story between Jogi and Laali’s sister which creates a wedge between the two and turns Laali against Jogi. This love story shifts focus from the main story which feels as an injustice to the movie and the truth it’s trying to show.

Jogi has a good screenplay and cinematography but falls short in it’s story because the acts against the Sikh are portrayed but lack the depth, pain and trauma which innocent Sikhs went through. Around 3000 Sikh died in this period for no fault of theirs. The cast especially Jogi and his friends and Tejpal Arora shine in the movie but they could do only so much of what they were given. There were moments like when Tejpal was giving vicious and murderous orders on phone while a kid is playing with him gives goosebumps.

Skip/Stream: Jogi is story of a massacre of innocent Sikh people stretched over three days which has a love story turn which was absolutely not necessary because it takes the focus away from what actually took place over that period and brutality of what lengths can people go to at the cost of anyone’s life. The cast no doubt shines through the movie, one can see the innocence in Diljit’s eyes and can know that why this movie is so personal to him and is the best person to play Jogi. Kumud also plays a perfect corrupt politician whose needs are above lives of the people. Jogi lacks a proper base at the beginning of the movie as to why all this is happening maybe a 2–3 minute introduction of Operation Blue Star might have helped. But if one doesn’t know about what happened to these innocent people it is surely a STREAM.