A slightly different Bollywood production, Joggers' Park was a decent enough film that lasted 20-30 minutes longer than it needed to. The two song sequences and the multiple endings of the film made the film seem worse than it was.

Justice Chatterjee is a celebrity in Mumbai. After 40 years in the courtroom, he has gotten a reputation as a fair-minded, well respected judge. Now, he is retired and just wants to leave the law behind him. But he's not sure what to do with himself, so his children tell him he should start taking walks around Joggers' Park. When he starts he meets a young woman named Jenny. Jenny is a part-time model, part-time everything whose parents died and is now forced to live by herself. She enjoys the single life and doesn't believe in love. The Justice, or JC as she called him, and Jenny soon hit it off and spend a lot of time together, both in and out of the park. He helps her with a legal issue, and she makes him feel younger again. Soon, JC starts to fall in love with Jenny, but isn't sure how to handle it. Can Jenny ever feel the same way about him? And what if she does? What happens to the Justice and his family?

At its heart, Joggers' Park was a beautiful movie about two people from different backgrounds, coming together to form a friendship that no one could understand. From that perspective, the movie was nice. The two leads, Victor Banerjee and Perizaad Zorabian were very engaging and were fun both together and when alone on screen. One could see easily how JC could fall for this girl, and Jenny was a lovely and vivacious woman who made friends with anyone and everyone. I truly enjoyed their performances.

The problem with the film was first it was much too long. There were at least 4 or 5 times where it could have ended, but instead kept going, adding layer upon layer of story that seemed unnecessary and extraneous. One possible storyline that could have carried through; Jenny and her uncle fighting over property; was resolved almost immediately. While that one could have easily been the backbone of the movie, it was almost glossed over for no apparent reason. And then, a storyline that was used throughout - One of JC's daughters having problems with her boyfriend - never came to a conclusion. That story could have been used to teach JC a lesson, but instead the producers threw in a storyline from out of left field to give JC a moral compass. It was almost like stories were added and thrown away without any connection to the main story and it gave the movie a choppy feel.

There were two musical numbers, neither of which served any purpose at all. Perizaad is a delightful actress but two things she can't do well; cry and dance. And the second number was just as unnecessary. I realize this is a Bollywood film, and moviegoers expect song and dance, but either go all out and do the full Bollywood song and dance routine, or cut it out totally. These two sequences seemed to also be thrown in at the last second without reason.

So overall, I enjoyed Joggers' Park, mainly because of the screen presence of the two leads. The story was good, but there were too many layers to keep it afloat. Cut out maybe 20-30 minutes, and the two musical numbers, and you have a decent film. But the movie that was released felt too long and in the end, that's not a feeling you want while sitting in a theater.

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