Satyameva Jayate Movie Review: Dialogue-Baazi Action Drama With Relentless Background Music And Cliche Ridden Sequences

Satyameva Jayate takes its objective very seriously indeed. We are shown stacks of wood, kerosene cans and matchsticks, and burning human flesh, over and over and over again. There’s so much gore that even hardened viewers may flinch, and there’s something entirely gratuitous about characters being made to mouth thunderous lines against people taking the law in their hands, and then showing humans being burnt and beaten.
The film’s primary plot revolves around John Abraham’s character, who plays a vigilante who takes it upon himself to bring justice to those who cannot protect themselves. Satyameva Jayate also stars Manoj Bajpayee, Aisha Sharma and Amruta Khanvilkar in pivotal roles. Directed by Milap Zaveri, the film has been produced by Bhushan Kumar, Krishan Kumar, Monisha Advani, Madhu Bhojwani, and Nikhil Advani.

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We can get why John Abraham is in this film: he’s done this kind of movie before, and this looks like an extension, all bulging biceps, and flaring nostrils, and using hands and legs against the enemy. He does action well: you believe when a tyre is split by those muscled arms. He is back in action, viciously pumping gasoline into the mouth of policemen gone astray and lighting a matchstick to send the man up in flames. Going on the rampage is all in a day's work, be it springing to the aid of a young man wrongly confined in a police station and tortured or a girl assaulted by a policeman. Veer might be a ruthless killer for a cause but he is a good guy with a good enough reason for his marauding ways.

Manoj Bajpayee is a wonderfully gifted actor who allows himself here to be trapped in a hopelessly wayward, disjointed script. So when in the climax he breaks down and bawls, one can understand exactly what is going on in his mind. Satyameva Jayate, in the form that it is on the screen, surely couldn't be what Bajpayee would have bargained for when he signed up for the project, who can lift a film just by his presence, to do this?

Satyameva Jayate is a fairly commercial thriller fronted by two actors who deliver forceful performances. It may not be the most intelligent thriller, but its lack of pretense is its greatest asset. It’s entertaining for some of the right reasons, and plenty of unintended ones.

John Abraham