‘Jolly LLB 3’ Ranks Among Global Top 10 Scorers

Indian stars Akshay Kumar, Arshad Warsi and Saurabh Shukla on a poster of the Bollywood film ‘Jolly LLB 3’.

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The latest Hindi release, Akshay Kumar-starrer Jolly LLB 3, has earned the love of the audience and climbed up the global charts. The Bollywood court-room drama scored $9.7 million over its first three days to rank among the top-grossing films worldwide this weekend. Comscore ranked the Indian film at the eighth slot on its weekly global list of top-scoring films for the weekend ending September 21.

Jolly LLB 3: Indian film ranks among global top scorers for third week in a row

The week ending September 21 was the third week in a row when an Indian film made it to Comscore’s list of films scoring the highest worldwide for a weekend. After AR Murugadoss’ Madharaasi and Karthik Gattamneni’s Mirai ranked on the list over the past two weeks. The Hindi film Jolly LLB 3 is the latest film to rank on Comscore’s list (and the third Indian one in a row). Directed by Subhash Kapoor, Jolly LLB 3 features Akshay Kumar, Arshad Warsi, Saurabh Shukla, Huma Qureshi, and Amrita Rao who reprise their lead roles in the film.

Jolly LLB 3 Box office report

Subhash Kapoor’s Jolly LLB 3 had a decent opening on September 19 when it hit theatres. In India the film opened a little below $2 million while the global score crossed $2.2 million on the first day. The positive reviews and a good word-of-mouth helped the film’s score soar significantly over the first weekend.

Jolly LLB 3 earned a little above $4.5 million in two days and closed its first weekend at $7.5 million in India. Globally, the film crossed $5 million and earned nearly $5.7 million by the end of Saturday. The film, headlined by Kumar and Warsi, scored nearly $10 million in its first weekend at the global box office. By the end of its first Monday, Jolly LLB 3 is poised to cross the $10 million-mark at the global ticket windows.

Jolly LLB 3 review

Subhash Kapoor first brought his own style of legal comedy to Bollywood with Jolly LLB in 2013. Arshad Warsi emerged as a widely-loved star from the film, redefining his stardom nearly a decade after the widespread success of Munnabhai MBBS (Warsi was a supporting actor in the Rajkumar Hirani film which was headlined by Sanjay Dutt).

In 2017, Bollywood star Akshay Kumar joined the team and Warsi was missing from the scene. Kumar’s film was equally popular and praised for being sharp, witty and relatable to the mileu in which it was set up. After both the lawyers garnered ample love from the audience, they joined hands for the third film – Jolly LLB 3.

Jolly LLB 3, much like the previous two films, sets up the honest Jolly Tyagi (Warsi) and street-smart Jolly Mishra (Kumar) with a dash of local culture. (The two lawyers hail from different cities in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.) Quickly, we are brought to the moment of tussle where honesty and kindness wins over street-smartness and the two lawyers join hands to deal with the corrupt.

Kapoor continues to showcase his knowledge of the region with a tight grip on the costumes, culture and language of the two main characters. He manages well to maintain the slight difference they ought to display. The director, who has also written Jolly LLB 3 (and the other two films in the franchise), manages to retain a balance between the art and commerce of the film. The film not only mentions certain important issues surrounding the Indian society but also handles them sensitively. The deep understanding and beautiful craft of the director is ably supported by his actors. Warsi, Shukla and Kumar display their best and bring forth all their might for Jolly LLB 3. Qureshi and Rao also manage to impress, even with their limited screen space.

Where Jolly LLB fails to match its predecessors lies somewhere between the need to balance between the two different kinds of Jolly, the lawyer. While ensuring that Warsi gets his due even in the presence of a star like Kumar, the film falls short of being as witty and fun as the second one. On the other hand, in an attempt to ensure that Akshay Kumar’s character does not fade away in comparison with the ‘original Jolly’, the Jolly LLB 3 appears to compromise a lot on the intensity of the issues and dramatic situations. While it is an entertaining as well as sensitive film, Jolly LLB 3 can easily be ranked at the lowest among the three films.