The story of two underdogs who get entangled in a sinister conspiracy isn’t exactly a unique story. This is exactly the story of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro and what set it apart are the treatment and the lens it uses to view this age-old tale of corruption. Watching Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro is a reminder that while the internet may have exposed the many facets of our “heroes” in the recent times, integrity has always been an exception, and will forever be.
Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro is cynical, dark and distressing. It is also insanely funny. Made on a shoe-string budget of ₹5 lakh by Kundan Shah, with a bunch of then mostly unknown actors and team, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro is a rare artistic feat that transcends every pragmatic consideration and common sense. It is also art that reset the boundaries of how Indian cinema understood and defined absurdism, and the humour that came with it. Whether it is the legendary, pop-culture favourite Mahabharata scene, or the missing body trope executed brilliantly, Jaane Bhi’s set pieces are a lesson in comedy that does not rely on vulgarity, insult or any other cheap shortcut to induce laughter.
In the world of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro there are no heroes. Only victims and villains. The dark satire was and continues to be a pop-culture force. Unlike modern cinema, it is a movie that almost wholly relies on its story to pull its weight. The writing on paper is exceptional, bolstered by the brilliance of its motley actors – Naseeruddin Shah, Ravi Vaswani, Pankaj Kapur, Satish Shah, Om Puri, Satish Kaushik – who commit to the nonsense with the same enthusiasm that they reserve for the serious themes.
Rewatching Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro is a lot like watching serendipity in motion, a celluloid history in making. It is a proof of the fact that great stories and great actors do not thrive because of expensive productions. Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro is a running joke that has outlasted decades. Because if there is one thing that Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro teaches us, the one timeless lesson, it is that the joke is never on the system. It is always on us, the common man.
Almost forty years after its release, the film remains a landmark in Bollywood for its dark humour. The title was based on a song…which got left out. Well, it came from a song, written by Satish Kaushik and Ranjit Kapoor. JBDY is one of the few Bollywood films to have no songs in it whatsoever. The uncut film is reported to be almost seven to eight hours long. It's very rare that a film that is made decades ago still resonates with the audience of every age group. In the 80s, when Bollywood was not how we see it today, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro was revolutionary.
