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Jai Gangaajal doesn’t offer anything you haven’t seen before, especially in the director’s own previous films. It’s also interminably long at nearly 2 hours and 40 minutes. Priyanka Chopra and Prakasha Jha’s performances keep you engaged and invested despite the familiar narrative, but by the end you’re overcome by the unmistakable feeling of exhaustion. I’m going with two-and-a-half out of five.

On the whole, Jai Gangaajal is a dull and unexciting film with an oft-repeated subject and one which gives the audience the feeling of having been cheated because it revolves around Prakash Jha instead of Priyanka Chopra. It will face rejection from the public and will, therefore, entail heavy losses to the investors.

Jai Gangaajal is one of Prakash Jhas best stories. It weaves together crucial contemporary threads - land mafias, corrupt netas, broker-cops, broken farmers - with Jhas enduring concern about vigilante justice. Yet, Jai Gangaajal packs a punch with its panorama (a Badaun-like landscape where girls are hung from trees), dilemma and performances - particularly the one by Madam Sir, who wields a lathi you will love.

Once Jai GangaaJal loses sight of all else to become only about his half-baked atonement it drags and dodders from the weight of its stocky dialogues, tediously cosmetic revolt and a leading man of very limited screen presence hogging all the limelight. Jha looks fit and speaks well but his eyes completely stiffen in front of the camera. He seems to be channeling Ajay Devgn and Nana Patekar in action and intensity. Except Jai GangaaJal reveals the conspicuous difference between a man who’s spent a better part of his career behind screen from the ones he’s directed for it.

Priyanka Chopra’s too-sophisticated unmade-up-make-up is very distracting, even in her few convincing moments. And the film goes on for far too long, even when we know how all of it will end, and even when we are thoroughly enjoying Jha’s authentic’ leheja’ : ‘aap ko koi galat misguide kiye hain’, he says, and we smile.

Prakash Jha has a perpetual all-knowing smirk on his face in the early portions of the film - well, he is the director and he should know - but his performance gets infinitely better after Bhola Nath Singh is assailed by a wave of qualms in the second half.Jai Gangaajal is likely to be a letdown for those who expect it to be a worthy follow-up to Gangaajal.But if you go in without too many expectations, you might find parts of its fairly palatable.

One must admit here that Jha surprises with his ease in front of the camera and decent acting abilities, but quite often the camera focuses a little too indulgently on him. Jha yet again successfully revisits the world he’s so familiar with, the rampant hooliganism, the fascinating and colourful lingo that we are all familiar with, largely thanks to Jha’s earlier films. At two hours forty minutes, the film is a bit too long and tends to get predictable at many parts.

Priyanka Chopra pulls off action extremely well. Her punchlines may even call for a few whistles. What’s Bad: A botched up plot clubbed with a terrible background score.Jai Gangaajal falters plot-wise, tries to balance it out with performances yet fails to create the right impact. I am going with a 2/5 for this!

After having watched Mrityudand, Gangaajal, Raajneeti, it is easy to say that this is one of Jha’s weaker projects. Perhaps, if he could have focused more on the screenplay than on making it a launchpad for himself, this could have been a better film. Watch it only for Priyanka Chopra, but then you might end up feeling sorry for her! After Quantico, Oscars and Baywatch reboot, she deserved much much better!

It’s a confusing blend of social commentary on mob justice, the rich-poor divide and power-hungry politicians. Jai Gangaajal is crammed with issues such as corporate greed, debt-ridden farms, lawless cities and frustrated civilians, but there’s no particular direction to all that chaos. If you are a Chopra fan and would love to see her kick bad guys into submission, then give this film a shot. Otherwise, skip it.

Jha shoots over Chopra’s shoulder in valourising his character, who has the best-written emotional arc and the strongest scenes. The director, who has also written the screenplay, has a deep understanding of how things work in these badlands, and he is not blind to the difficulties of trying to fix what is badly broken. But BN Singh’s solutions are ultimately no different – and certainly less watchable – than the average vigilante flick. Singh ultimately emerges as a more serious and sorrowful Chulbul Pandey, and all Jai Gangaajal needed was a shirt-baring moment to complete the fantasy of justice delivered off the books and in slow motion.