Jazbaa

Story:

Jazbaa is a 2015 Indian Hindi-language crime thriller film directed by Sanjay Gupta. The film’s narrative revolves around an attorney forced to defend an unsavory criminal after her daughter is kidnapped. It stars Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Irrfan Khan, with Shabana Azmi, Jackie Shroff, Atul Kulkarni and Chandan Roy Sanyal in supporting roles. It is a remake of the 2007 South Korean film Seven Days. The film was released on 9 October 2015. The film marked Aishwarya’s return on screen after a five-year break.

PLOT

Anuradha Verma (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan) is a prominent criminal lawyer and a single mother who has never lost a case. On the day of a parent-child race organized in her daughter Sanaya’s (Sara Arjun) school, Sanaya is abducted. The kidnapper contacts Anuradha and tells her that she has to defend a convicted felon in order to get her daughter back. Anuradha lies to family and friends, saying that Sanaya is safe at her grandmother’s house, so that the law enforcement is not involved. The felon is Niyaaz Shaikh (Chandan Roy Sanyal) who is convicted for the rape and murder of a young woman named Sia (Priya Banerjee), and the case against him is set for hearing in four days. The kidnapper keeps track of Anuradha very closely to make sure that she complies with his demands. All evidence suggests that Niyaaz is the perpetrator, and so Anuradha has to work hard to win the case, and with time running out, she tries to get help from her policeman friend Yohan (Irrfan Khan), who has been suspended from the force by other corrupt officers for flouting the rules and regulations too often.

The case against Niyaaz is being closely monitored by influential politician Mahesh Maklai (Jackie Shroff). Mahesh asks renowned public prosecutor (Atul Kulkarni), who has been defeated by Anuradha in the past, to take up the case as rape is a critical issue the current government is fighting. Anuradha tries to gather information by hook or crook, including lying to Sia’s mother Garima Chaudhary (Shabana Azmi). Anuradha discovers that Mahesh’s son, Sam (Siddhanth Kapoor), was Sia’s boyfriend, and Niyaaz was their drug dealer. Niyaaz had raped and killed Sia after delivering drugs to her home, while Sam was intoxicated and passed out.

As Anuradha returns home one evening, she is taken hostage by Mahesh and his henchmen. The politician explains to her that Sam panicked and contacted him to help him dispose of Sia’s corpse. Cutting the gas pipes and planning to set the house on fire, the intruders leave Anuradha bound and gagged on the floor. However she unties herself and escapes.

After returning to court, Anuradha is able to get Niyaaz out on bail due to lack of evidence and also implicates Mahesh and Sam as co-conspirators of the murder, thus destroying the political career of Mahesh. Sanaya is freed by the kidnapper. As Yohan and Anuradha continue digging, they realise that Garima is behind the kidnapping of her daughter. Garima forced Anuradha to defend Niyaaz, so that he could be freed. Garima then kidnapped Niyaaz and burned him alive, since she finds the death sentence or life imprisonment to be insufficient punishment for someone who brutally raped and murdered her daughter. Anuradha, though initially infuriated after finding out the truth, offers her services as a lawyer to Garima when she is apprehended by police.