Zee5 Yaara Movie Review: Yaara is Vidyut Jammwal’s latest film on Zee5 tells the story of four friends, who become notorious criminals at the India–Nepal border. Yaara is an Indian remake of the French film A Gang Story, which was released back in 2011.
Alongside Vidyut Jammwal, the movie features Shruti Haasan, Amit Sadh, Vijay Varma, and Kenny Basumatary. Below are some early fan reactions on social media for Vidyut Jammwal’s latest crime drama film, Yaara.
A large chunk of the story takes place in the 1970s before the film jumps to 1997. In fact, Yaara opens in the late 1990s with the return of Mitwa to Delhi, which sets off a chain of events that tests Phagun and Sukanya’s marriage, and then moves back and forth through the decades. The early portions of Yaara recall 1970s Mumbai potboilers, but the look and feel of the rest of the film tend to be erratic.
In the movie a muscular Vidyut Jammwal and a brooding Amit Sadh, playing the two male leads, are called upon to put in the hard yards in a film that never quite gets off the ground. Written and directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia, Yaara straddles five decades – from the early 1950s to the late 1990s – and yet seems caught in a time warp.
The story cuts back and forth between late 70s and present, where four friends Phagun (Vidyut Jammwal), Mitwa (Amit Sadh), Rizwan (Vijay Verma) and Bahadur (Kenny Basumatary), who are thick as thieves at first sight, run their illegal businesses of bootlegging, smuggling and arms dealing successfully. They climb up the criminal ladder since their is no major opposition from anywhere really.
Zee5 Yaara Movie Review in Brief: An uninspiring Friendship Saga, that only thrills you for its action scenes
The first quarter of the 130-minute film is fuzzy, frenetic and utterly befuddling. It makes way for a stretch where the plotting becomes somewhat clearer and steadier, allowing the characters to come into their own and lend the storyline certain recognizable contours. You figure out that this is a tale of friendship and rebellion, honour and betrayal, redemption and retribution involving defiant misfits who have the odds loaded against them and can hope to survive only if they keep fighting.
What follows, is a beefy Vidyut Jammwal and a brooding Amit Sadh, playing the two male leads, are called upon to put in the hard yards in a film that never quite gets off the ground. Written and directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia, Yaara straddles five decades – from the early 1950s to the late 1990s – and yet seems caught in a time warp.
The patchy action film would have us believe that it is an epic saga. Despite all its surface flourish and expansive historical allusions, it is trapped in a constricted bandwidth. The core of the film is exasperatingly hollow. In the bargain, the end result falls short of matching the overt ambition of the enterprise.
Yaara banks on numerous Hindi cinema cross-references and stray mentions of socio-political developments to mark out the different eras in the life of the film’s five principal characters – four outlaws who stick together through thick and thin (until the law catches up and comes down heavily on them) and the girlfriend/wife of one of the guys.
The first quarter of the 130-minute film is fuzzy, frenetic and utterly befuddling. It makes way for a stretch where the plotting becomes somewhat clearer and steadier, allowing the characters to come into their own and lend the storyline certain recognizable contours. You figure out that this is a tale of friendship and rebellion, honour and betrayal, redemption and retribution involving defiant misfits who have the odds loaded against them and can hope to survive only if they keep fighting.
The Chowkdi Gang (gang of four), has to be feared, because the filmmaker is telling us to do so by displaying firing of guns, money trail, muscle power and what not. There seems to be no effort made establish or connect to the history about the rise of these four small gangsters, who become mafias during the course of movie. In doing so, Yaara only verges on superficiality and that happens on many levels.
Side kicks include the Chowkdi Gang supplying arms to naxals for their revolution. Add to that a dash of student politics, a forced romance angle between Shruti Haasan and Vidyut, which becomes the center of the story somewhere in the second act but never really lifts the movie to any greater heights in terms of storytelling or treatment, underworld operating from Dubai and corrupt police investigation. What you get finally is an overcooked hotch-potch of bland individual ingredients.
With the lack of a good script, director leans on his actors performances to lift up the entire narrative. But, the performances arent inspiring in any ways. Even, Vidyut has dialogues to mutter, he falters, beyond hope, barring his signature actions. Same is the case with Shruti.
Peformances
The main actors – Jammwal, Sadh, Shruti Haasan, Vijay Varma and Kenny Basumatary – flail about aimlessly as the patchy screenplay allows no leeway for proper channeling of their energies. The haphazard editing does not help matters. None of actors, barring Jammwal to a certain extent, is allowed to settle into a stable rhythm. There are a couple of scenes where one might just detect flashes of Sarika in Shruti Haasan. Unfortunately, her character arc is disappointingly inconsistent
Amit, who has been appearing in various OTT-based shows and movies, attempts to explore a different approach again, but the story lets him down.
Vijay post Gully Boy role is unimpressive. Kenny is okay but the focus is more on the others, so he naturally gets forgotten.
Tigmanshu’s movies’s cinematography is good and captures heartland India in postcard frames showcasing suburban beauty. Apart from that, there’s nothing engaging in Yaara .
The dialogues that are given to actors are pitiful, with some double meaning lines and some rattle about manhood and violence. That’s what makes you feel the movie of devoid of entertainment as we go along.
All in all, Yaara, is a passable movie. It is a content made in a jiffy for an OTT platform. A little more focus on script would have made the movie watch worthy.
Watch the trailer of Yaara Movie
Our Verdict: It is a passable movie . For Vidyut Fans they will have something to cheer about their Hero and his action scenes.
This is what Vidyut had to say about his film. Watch Yaara on Zee5
How much will Phagun be willing to sacrifice to prove his #BondOfYaara?
Watch how 4 best friends try and overcome the ultimate test of friendship in #YaaraOnZEE5.STREAMING NOW – https://t.co/yiHjZ6qmFb@ZEE5Premium@dirtigmanshu @SunirKheterpal pic.twitter.com/i7Vj6iYZZz
— Vidyut Jammwal (@VidyutJammwal) July 30, 2020
Yaara‘s main them seems to be about friendship. Set in the India-Nepal border, the movie tells the story of four friends who become criminals. The movie then explores how the four friends change over the course of their criminal career and how their loyalties are tested during their downfall. Yaara was specifically released on International Friendship Day, July 30, due to its themes.