To begin with praises, here we have a brave, experimental psychological thriller which has not been the genre frequently tried in Hindi cinema. Plus JUDGEMENTALL HAI KYA has its merits in its performances and enjoyable use of influences ranging from Sririam Raghavan, old Hindi film songs, immersing cinematography, fine sound design and background score as well as execution and writing (in parts). But the issue is that the niche audience interested in watching such cinema, actually prefer to watch it on the smaller screen in their homes (and in their palms) instead of visiting the theater buying the multiplex ticket.
On the other hand, JUDGEMENTALL HAI KYA is also not a film which can entertain and excite the general audience of Hindi movies as it unfortunately dips losing it path post the first half and has too many flaws and huge cinematic liberties taken in its suspense and mystery plot, focusing more on the psycho character of Kangana, which eventually becomes tiring towards the second hour.
So the film directed by Prakash Kovelmundi is bound to receive extreme responses from the audience with the positive ones coming only from a smaller niche section of the viewers (as expected).
Another major drawback of JUDGEMENTALL HAI KYA is that it doesn’t turn out to be as quirky, mad and enjoyable as projected in its promotional campaign through some innovative posters, promos and theatrical trailer. To be straight, where Kangana successfully impresses, engages and entertains through her flawless act, the same madness is not seen in the portrayal of Rajkummar Rao as he is not playing any similar character (contradicting the promotion). Thus, the film is not as entertaining as it was expected to be especially post the intermission.
Above all, the biggest disappointment in the execution (yet again contradicting its promotional content) is that it has some murders but no exciting investigations conducting by the cops led by Satish Kaushik and Brijendra Kala. In fact, the two have only a couple of scenes which you have already seen in the trailers (which was cruel).
Written by Kanika Dhillon, who also plays a notable role on screen, the script suffers from the second half curse and remains more interested in the psychological trauma of the lead character instead of the mystery or suspense. Ignoring the thriller element, it then goes overboard towards the climax with the reference of Ramayan and Kangana hearing/seeing her multiple inner voices reaching the conclusion. Here I also found the pronunciation of words like Ramayan and Raavan a bit strange with a typical hangover of the English accent.
Fighting with these downers, Kangana succesfully handles the complex role showing her class and JUDGEMENTALL HAI KYA would have certainly been nothing without Kangana playing the lead to be honest. The talented actress also gets ample support coming from her co-stars namely Amrita Puri, Amyra Dastur, Hussain Dalal and Jimmy Shergill. Rajkummar Rao also deserves appreciation for being her partner, but I frankly found him quite ‘less’, missing the promised madness or mental-ness in his portrayal.
Summing up, JUDGEMENTALL HAI KYA starts well from a childhood trauma, takes its times to sink it, does fine till intermission as a rare experimental film, but then doesn’t remain the same in the second half. Particularly the disappointment is sure to be there if you are looking for an engaging murder mystery full of mad characters.
Having said that the film still is what it is, only because of Kangana Ranaut and not anything or anyone else (including the writing). No doubt it doesn’t deliver what it promised and Kangana has also done such roles in her earlier films too. But JUDGEMENTALL HAI KYA still deserves to be rated as a one-time watch for the talented lady alone, daringly managing to excel in a rare genre.
Rating : 2.5 / 5
