Jatt & Juliet 3: Diljith Dosanjh Is Jatt What We Need

UNLIKE the first two Jatt & Juliet films, the third instalment of the franchise teases a new structure. This time round, the romance blooms before the baggage takes over. But because this is Punjabi cinema, and because this is Jatt & Juliet 3, both protagonists court each other with selfish intent. Intent they retrace as punchlines, shared only with the audience. The fourth wall is thus routinely broken, and the interval block underlined by a meta-declaration of cinematic heritage. “Hope you are having a monumental time!” Diljit Dosanjh’s voice shouts (in Punjabi of course). It feels like a reiteration of the stature this franchise holds in the context of Punjabi cinema. Inadvertently it also highlights the prestige that storytelling can often become the casualty of. Unless of course, if you have an oversized but endlessly watchable superstar — capable of elevating just about anything from dry scripts to deadened climates — in Dosanjh.

Dosanjh reprises his role as Fateh Singh, christened third time over as a newly appointed member of the infamous but recurring Punjab Police. The canvas echoes a certain familiarity. Fateh remains sweet, pompous and corrupt. On his first day in office he discovers Pooja (Neeru Bajwa), a fierce yet fetching officer, a few years his senior. Police work takes a backseat as both court each other with the impish guile of two magnets trying to meet underwater. Pooja wants a supportive, feminist companion, while Fateh likes the sound of the tidy sum their respective salaries and bribes would amount to.

The first half forms this understated battle of wit and wet-behind-the-ear wisdoms. The romance thus becomes a by-product of social engineering, as a man and a woman try to ‘arrange’ a mutually beneficial relationship. To this cosplay of purpose, the backdrop of Pooja’s unmarried brothers, Fateh’s doting mother and other specimens of the Punjab police play out for laughs. The first half cascades into a breezy collection of puns and minor skirmishes. It’s when things get serious that the film begins to wobble.

Fateh and Pooja are tasked with tracking down Daisy (Jasmin Bajwa), a runaway bride who, along with her intended groom’s money, has fled to the promised land of London. You can tell Punjabi cinema has matured when journeys abroad no longer exact absurdities, cultural clashes or bizarre accidents. Without that spicy entanglement, however, the displacement feels underwhelming. Daisy is part of a Fateh Singh flashback that never quite manages to take its place at the centre of the story. It’s a thread introduced via the famous father-son duo of Shampy (Rana Ranbir) and his father (BN Sharma), a call-back that struggles to lift itself to the hysteria of the original. Again, prestige swats aside freshness for the sake of nostalgia. Shampy and his father could have evolved, done something different with all that anticipation but in an attempt to recreate the old they end up doing mercilessly little of the new.

Tasked with reprising a beloved franchise a decade on, writer and director Jagdeep Sidhu somewhat shifts the blocks, but ends up erecting a familiar, possibly even thicker edifice to Diljit Dosanjh’s stardom. The masculinity has been toned down, the women get to do more. There is even greater empathy for the milieu of immigration and poverty that the films have tersely referenced in the past. But unlike the first two films, this third one seems even more reliant on the pedigree that Dosanjh has, since the original, propelled himself to. Fateh Singh these days looks too small for his world-conquering feet, but Dosanjh has this disarming, almost blissful aura of a performer who seems to do better without the guardrails of safety. His Instagram lives and impromptu interviews are evidence that he is best served by the chaos of confusion compared to the control of conviction. Here he effortlessly turns a bedtime story into a naughty metaphor for romance, a slap into a casual gag, the art of courting two women into a harmless pursuit of manhood. All because he is so watchable, so seductively defenceless in everything he does. It’s simultaneously the most vulnerable and the most confident an artist can seem.

Jatt & Juliet 3 comes nowhere close to the exuberance and the titillating quality of the original films. The franchise’s stars have outgrown the industry, and maybe that ought to have featured in the manner these popular characters are reimagined. There are chutes of change but they don’t quite land in a new brave land. Much of the same ensues and while that is inviting enough in itself, given the importance of this franchise in the context of the Punjabi industry, it is at best some ado about something. Thankfully for the creators, and the studios (White Hill and Speed Records) behind this third outing, Dosanjh, when urged to do comedy, can merge and dissect atoms in his sleep. To all that he has recently accomplished, Fateh still feels like an unguarded, unvarnished version of his own original self. A version that feels more like him than he ever was. That in itself is a peculiar and perhaps blessed brand of stardom.