Good Luck Jerry movie review: A whole lot of silly fun

In a scene from Disney+Hotstar’s Good Luck Jerry, a drug leader tries to identify a rat within his gang of thugs. He shoots one, based on instinct, and another after Jerry (Janhvi Kapoor) claims “Humein Abhi Bhi Shaq Ho Raha Hai”. The second man is shot, after Jerry turns her back on him. This scene is followed by a guilt-ridden Kapoor feverishly contemplating, not her guilt, but her own mortality. Good Luck Jerry is often silly, frivolous and predictable, but within its world of self-deprecating thugs and bullish jokers parading as bad men, the film also offers subversive clarity. It’s a bonus then that the film, though it can indulge in potty humour and stereotypes, is never really boring.

Jerry is one half of a three-woman family that has apparently migrated from Bihar to Delhi. She works in a massage parlour, is ambitious and constantly courted by men around her. Her younger sister and cancerous mother invite similar but somewhat muted attention in comparison. It’s a neat premise, you could argue even Freudian in nature. Jerry is calm and innocent on the outside, but on the inside, she is equally adept at compartmentalising. In one scene, she is told by her boss in no uncertain terms that she is clever enough to know ‘when to say sir, when to take his name’. Fortune lands Jerry at the doorstep of a local criminal who smuggles drugs. Hence begins her journey of precious opportunism and to an extent, reluctant gallantry.

Jerry approaches Timmy, played by a terrific Jaswant Singh Dalal, a local drug lord who agrees to hire her for deliveries, partly enamoured and partly curious about her. Timmy has a cervical problem and is supported by a caste of loony, often silly handymen, led by a wonderful Sahil Mehta. Timmy also has a boss, in Sushant Singh. While these men become Jerry’s workplace buddies, they are also the ones she must navigate as a matter of surviving the edge of the knife that cuts your dough. Besides her work, Jerry also has the attention of Shekhar, played by the ever reliable Deepak Dobriyal. Shekhar is an overly dressed neighbourhood jock whose aspirations certainly overarch his reach and he embodies a certain form of rustic romanticism that is neither private nor without a sprinkling of tragedy.

Once Good Luck Jerry gets past its awkward introductions, of which there are plenty, you can pretty much see where this is going. Jerry gets ahead of herself and is corrupted by the trigger she can pull from over someone else’s shoulder. It’s a sensual awakening of sorts, but never quite sold as such in the film. From the woman who is uncomfortably regarded as the focus of attention, to the woman who learns to gradually manipulate that attention to her benefit, a reticent, slow-witted Jerry, blossoms into a woman who is willing to embrace her darker side. Moreover, she does this with an aura of stupid luck rather than willful degradation. The morality is teased, dilemma’s fleetingly floated into comprehension but for the sake of the often frantic entertainment never quite examined.

As for the performances, Janhvi Kapoor is perfectly cast as a young, chaste but ultimately mercurial Jerry. Dalal and Dobriyal are deliciously wicked, but it’s Sahil Mehta’s cocky sardar who often steals scenes through his macho grandstanding. The film is set in a similar space like Hotstar’s previous, comedy-of-error caper Lootcase, but is decidedly darker and more vicious in its banter. There are some silly jokes here, the kind that are ludicrously simple and yet flatteringly universal. From people making potty sounds while talking over the phone to the Bihari women mispronouncing names to establish a certain type, Good Luck Jerry, doesn’t really invent the wheel, but merely turns it with a different destination in mind via pit-stops that though derivative to an extent, are never not entertaining.

If Good Luck Jerry has an issue it might be the fact that the film, after it has exhausted its capacity to accommodate quirky characters, struggles to hold onto their relevance. It often chimes between self-seriousness and farce, but ends up, unlike Lootcase, being middling. Jerry’s predicament is desperate, but it never quite feels so because the three women aren’t really given the kind of space that their unique relationship could have used. Much of it is largely down to the insistence to make Janhvi the leading light of the show, and while the actress carries herself with aplomb, it undermines some threads of a kooky little premise that maybe, could have been explored better. All that said, there is little that one can complain about in a film that though inconsistent in parts, is a whole lot of familiar, silly fun. This is after all a world where several people living in Delhi do not know or cannot pronounce the word momo. It’s hardly believable but for a film that feels like a park ride, it’s acceptable.

The author writes on art and culture, cinema, books, and everything in between. Views expressed are personal.

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