Jack, directed by Bommarillu Baskar, asks for suspension of disbelief, but even after that, the narrative is too absurd for my liking and truth be told, I couldn’t bring myself to appreciate or enjoy what was shown. I understand the approach where the protagonist jokes around and does not take anything seriously, but the moment the plot calls for it, he turns into this superhuman who has the potential to do anything. But still, in Jack, I was just not able to stay invested, and it was a task for me to sit through the film. That said, the film is trending on Netflix, so definitely my opinions aren’t part of the majoritarian taste.
Spoiler Alert
How did Pablo’s mother die?
Pablo Neruda got the name Jack, or perhaps he started using that nickname himself because, as his father told him, he was a jack of all trades and master of none. Pablo was good at everything, like various sports, studies, and extracurriculars, but the problem was that he just couldn’t cope with the established rules and principles of any field. So, for example, if the cricket coach told him to follow certain rules while batting, he just couldn’t do that. Because of this rebellious attitude, Pablo got rejected by more than 20 sports coaches, and they all told his father that the boy didn’t have a future. Pablo’s father got really worried, and he knew that Pablo needed to change his behavior if he wanted to get anywhere in life. But Pablo’s mother didn’t see his behavior as being problematic. According to her, her boy was just curious, and he wanted to do things his way. She knew he had the potential and that one day he would make the entire family proud. She told him to not feel bad about what his father said, and she assured Pablo that his success would change his perception too. But then, one day, terrorists waged war on Indian soil (the film uses real-life footage of the 26/11 attack), and Pablo’s mother got shot by them. Pablo couldn’t save his mother, and the regret of not being able to do that stayed with him always. Probably that was the time when Pablo decided to join the Indian intelligence agency, RAW. Pablo sat for the interview, but he never got a call back from the agency. For those trying to guess why he didn’t get a call back, If you watch the film, you’ll know why. I mean, I am not opposed to over-the-top humor, but because of all the exaggeration, the film fails to make an impact with the narrative or the emotions. So amidst such buffoonery, when the flashback sequence of Pablo’s mother being shot came out of nowhere, it didn’t seem to have any kind of impact or effect on me. Coming back to the narrative, even before the results were declared, Pablo decided to do some good for the nation and hunt down the terrorists on his own, because apparently he knew all the tricks of the trade.
How did Shafi escape?
There was another man named IPS Ranganathan who participated in the RAW selection process, and the former decided to team up with him and fight the terrorists. How did Pablo track down the dreaded terrorist Shafi? Well, it was quite easy, as he put a tracker in his wallet and then just got the better of him and caught him before the intelligence agencies could. Manoj, who was a senior officer at RAW, was also pursuing the same terrorist, but his plans got spoiled as Pablo was quicker and more efficient than his entire team. Pablo had no clue that Manoj was from RAW and, secondly, that he was also after Shafi. Pablo kept Shafi in his custody, and he tried to extract information from him. Things got a bit complicated after Pablo captured officer Manoj too, presuming that he too was on Shafi’s team. Meanwhile, Pablo’s father had hired a private detective agency to find out what his son was up to and where he worked. The owner of the detective agency had given charge of the entire mission to her daughter, Afshan. So all this while Pablo was tracking Shafi down, Afshan was after him. Afshan did meet Pablo, pretending to be in love with him, but that plan didn’t really work out for her, and she wasn’t able to get any information out of him. So Afshan started tracking him, and that led her to the secret base where he had kept both Manoj and Shafi. Shafi was a shrewd conspirator and took advantage of the fact that Afshan didn’t know what was happening. Shafi was able to free himself with Afshan’s help, and Pablo’s mission failed terribly, as not only had the terrorist escaped from his safekeeping, but he had also abducted a RAW agent and kept him in captivity.
How Did Manoj And Pablo Stop The Attack On India?
Manoj blamed Pablo for spoiling his plans and compromising the security of the nation. He told Pablo that there was a reason why he wasn’t selected by the RAW. He was undisciplined; he had no regard for authority and chain of command, and moreover, he just did what he felt like. Manoj and Pablo were able to figure out pretty much at the same time that Shafi was in Nepal and that he was planning an attack on India. Manoj also got to know that Pablo had left for Nepal, which left him even more infuriated. He decided to catch hold of Pablo first and then go after the terrorist. Pablo realized that a local chemist was involved in terrorist activities, and so he put a bug on him so that he could listen in on all the conversations that he had in a day. As Pablo expected, Shafi did come to meet that chemist, and through their conversations, the former got to know that a man named Ata-ul-Rahman was planning an attack on India. Manoj caught hold of Pablo when both of them were chasing Shafi, and that’s when the former gave Pablo a piece of his mind. Pablo gave all the intel he had to Manoj, and the latter couldn’t believe that Ata-ul-Rahman was still alive. Back in the day, Manoj, during a mission, had killed around 300 terrorists, and he believed that Ata-ul-Rahman was one of them. But it was not so. Pablo, through the chemist, got to know Ata-ul-Rahman’s location and gave that information to Manoj. Pablo felt guilty for coming in the way of the Indian intelligence agencies, and he decided that he would go back to India and find some other job. Once Manoj and his team left to catch Rahman, Pablo intuitively felt that the chemist was lying. His fears came true when he got to know that a trap had been laid for the Indian intelligence officers.
In Jack’s ending, Pablo went ahead of the RAW team so that he could take the fall for them, but his plans failed as they were all captured by Rahman’s men. That’s when we got to know that Rahman’s’ target was not India but the RAW agents who protected the country and stood as a shield in front of it. Rahman took Manoj and his men on a train, and he told them how each and every agent who was in India would be killed in a couple of hours. But then, as expected, our hero came to the rescue, and in no time he killed each and every terrorist on the train. Not only that, he transferred all the secret data of the terrorist organization to the authorities in India, who captured all the terrorists in no time. Yes, it was that convenient. So then the question of how to give closure to our hero arose: he was given a job in RAW, and at the end he achieved what he had set out to do. I don’t know what kind of agent he would make, but the Indian intelligence agency chief validated his methods by selecting him for the job. I believe Jack will end up with Afshan, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she too becomes a part of the spy nexus, considering she was already a self-proclaimed detective, and helps him for the future mission.
