Tweet
Released by: Eros Entertainment
Released on: February, 2015.
Director: Prabhudeva
Cast: Ajay Devgn, Sonakshi Sinha
Year: 2014
Purchase From Amazon
The Movie:
From the director of Rowdy Rathore comes Action Jackson, a movie that's quite similar to that earlier picture in more ways than one, but sadly not nearly as good. The story introduces us to a man named Vishi (Ajay Devgn) who, along with his pal, Moosa (Kunaal Roy Kapur), makes a living as a thug. He basically gets drunk, beats people up (often to his own theme song - Superman!) and takes their money. While he's doing his thing we meet a woman named Khushi (Sonakshi Sinha) who seems to have consistently bad luck in life. When she wanders into a store to get some new clothes and opens the door to a changing room, she's shocked to see Vishi standing there in the buff, but after seeing him, her luck changes. She wins a gift certificate for the store and gets a promotion at work!
Now believing that seeing Vishi naked brings her good luck, she starts following him around and eventually they hit it off, even if she isn't impressed by his drinking or his brawling. What neither of them realize is that Vishi is a dead ringer for a mobster named AJ (Devgn again) who has just split from his employer Xavier (Ananda Raj), who is none too happy about his departure because he wants him to marry his drug addicted, but totally hot, younger sister Marina (Manasvi Mamgai). He kidnaps AJ's pregnant wife and holds her hostage while AJ winds up fleeing to Mumbai. Of course, once he's here he meets Vishi and convinces him to head back to his city to impersonate him and deal with the sister while he tries to figure out how to get his wife back. Of course, AJ, who says things like 'It's my way or the skyway' and 'Me, criminally bad' before busting heads and slashing people up with his swords, is the consummate Bollywood badass so you know how all of this is going to play out…
This movie is absurd. It's all over the place in terms of tone and consistency, with the comedy largely made up of goofy sight gags and bizarre cartoon style sound effects. When Kushi isn't trying to get a gander at Vishi's junk, Vishi is slapping Moosa and Moosa is making silly comments. The movie will occasionally switch from live action to CGI cartoon at random and to no benefit of the movie itself, and there's weird Subway, Pepsi and McDonald's product placement scattered about the first half of the movie. The fight scenes in the first half of the film, where Vishi is the lead, are played for laughs. The opening brawl that takes place in a bar sees him smacking bad guys through the air and stopping to bust a few bad dances moves while Moosa gets up and jams with the live band puzzlingly accompanying all of this.
Once the focus shifts from Vishi to AJ, things get very different very quickly. The movie switches from cornball action/romantic comedy to a darker type of action film starting with a scene in which AJ's pregnant wife is tortured by Xavier and his crew. Later, Moosa is tortured by Marina in a scene that borders on sexual violence (surprising to see in a mainstream Bollywood picture like this) and then when AJ shows up to save the day, he busts out the swords and just mows through the rival gangsters like a hot knife through butter. The violence ante is definitely upped and the movie and at times it's kind of jarring, but hey, that's half the fun of going into a movie like this - you really don't know what you're going to get out of it and there's a very real element of unpredictability mixed in with all the clichés and trite plot devices that makes it interesting, even when the movie just really quite poorly made.
And while Action Jackson is fun in its own stupid way, it is fun. Disposable fun, but fun. Ajay Devgn is smug enough to work as the lead and he handles himself well enough in the action scenes. He's got decent comedic timing and is generally just kind of amusing to watch. He can't dance worth a damn and the movie sort of plays off of that at times (watch the sequence that plays over the end credits to see the director making fun of him for that), so where traditionally we'd see him cutting a rug, he more often than not just sort of poses and struts a bit while everyone else around him busts some crazy dance moves. It's clearly an attempt to hide the fact that he can't really dance - hey, this guy has no real dance moves so let's surround him with drunken Punjabi guys or Elvis impersonators or Sonakshi Sinha in a skimpy outfit. It's the later of those tricks that works the best, because putting Sonakshi Sinha will get most straight dudes to stand up and take notice. She's also quite a skilled dancer and while her acting here is fairly one note, hey, she's cute and quirky and she handles the material, as basic as it is, well enough. The villains steal the show here though. Ananda Raj is like some sort of super sinister bad guy from a Bond movie, what with the weird eyes and the mark on his bald head, while the underused Manasvi Mamgai actually proves quite adapt at bringing her doped out, obsessed character to life with a reasonable amount of attention grabbing style.
So yeah, not everyone will be willing to look past the fact that this story is really similar to Rowdy Rathore (sharing the director and female lead sort of solidifies that) or that it is full of goofy product placement, horrible CGI work and really terrible comedy. Not everyone will look past the fact that the lead actor can't dance in a movie that has a lot of dancing in it and not everyone will look past the fact that the movie was edited by someone who obviously suffers from serious attention deficit disorder. Not everyone will be willing or able to forgive Action Jackson of its many sins, and that's totally understandable, because it's tough to defend the picture on those merits. But with a six pack of cheap beer and a bag of delicious BBQ kettle chips at your side, it's not impossible to have fun with this. It'll certainly help to kill a few brain cells first but it is what it is - dumb, lowest common denominator cinema with an emphasis on zany and not much else.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Action Jackson arrives on DVD in 2.35.1 anamorphic widescreen in a transfer that is perfectly watchable but considerably less than perfect. On the plus side, the colors look really nice here. Much of this movie takes place in colorful locations and with some pretty bright costumes and this side of the production is represented well. Black levels are okay too, but the movie suffers from some fairly obvious compression artifacts and even some occasional, but noticeable, macroblocking. During a couple of the dance scenes where fast movement occurs you can plainly see those annoying effects in action and it takes away from things a bit. Aside from that, there are no issues with any damage or debris so the image is as clean looking as you'd expect something shot digitally would be. It's watchable to be sure, but those compression issues due stick out like a sore thumb in a few spots. Oh, but it is worth noting that any time a character light up a cigarette in the movie we see a video bug in the bottom right corner that says 'WARNING! SMOKING KILLS!'
Hindi language options are provided in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo with removable subtitles offered in English and Arabic. Both tracks sounds good but if you've got the gear for it, go with the 5.1 mix as it does a great job of spreading out the sound effects and especially the music used in the movie. Levels are well balanced throughout and there are plenty of cool directional effects noticeable throughout the movie, particularly the action scenes. There are no problems with any hiss or distortion and the dialogue is always crisp and clear. There are a few slip ups in the subtitles but nothing so serious that it really takes you out of the movie.
There are no extra features on the disc, just a menu offering audio setup options and chapter/song selection. The DVD does come packaged with a nifty little slipcase though, so that's something.
The Final Word:
Action Jackson definitely plays to the lowest common denominator, throwing logic, character development and good storytelling out the window in favor of cornball comedy, ineffective romance and ridiculous action scenes, but it's amusing enough even if it's not good in the traditional sense that movies are good. In fact, it's kind of a fascinating disaster of a movie, one where so many obvious mistakes are made that you almost become immune to them. The Eros DVD sounds good but offers a heavily compressed transfer. Unfortunately, it seems to be the only game in town.
Maybe its because I havent actually seen the other movie you mention as being better ROWDY RATHORE...I may have to solve that oversight this weekend