STORY: Jagdishwar Mishra aka Jolly (Akshay) starts out as a prominent lawyer’s sidekick in Kanpur. Driven by ambition, he hoodwinks a pregnant widow, Hina Siddique (Sayani Gupta) on the lookout for justice. He lands the murder case of her husband, but when she realises he is a fraud, she kills herself. Leaving Jolly with guilt on his conscience and an unresolved case in his hands. Now, he wants justice more than ever.

REVIEW: On the face of it, apna Jolly is a novice indulging in petty crimes because he knows the loopholes in the law. At home, he is the hen-pecked husband of lush, Pushpa Panday (Huma) who loves whisky, Gucci dresses and her chubby son in that order. But these are just asides and not the main premise of courtroom drama, which in many ways follows the template of the 2013 prequel, Jolly LLB.

Writer-director Subhash Kapoor who has studied India’s burgeoning legal system of `I-will-see-you-in-court’, definitely knows as much about the Indian Penal Code as most legal sharks because of his deep study of the subject. While the last instalment dealt with a hit-n-run case, this one deals with the case of mistaken identity of a J & K terrorist. The plot has enough laugh-out-loud situations and emotional outbursts to keep you invested especially in the razor-sharp first half. The film also provides the right dose of action inside and outside the courtroom. With cops playing villains and terrorists changing religions, legal greenhorn Jolly finds himself dodging bullets in Kanpur, Lucknow and Manali(doubling up for Kashmir.)

Post interval though, the film hits a pause button at times. The maker tries to pack in too much legal diatribe between Jolly and his adversary, the topnotch, Pramod Mathur(Annu Kapoor), in Judge Tripathy’s (Saurabh Shukla, delightful as always) Lucknow courtroom. Their weighty arguments do educate and entertain to some degree. But there are portions that seem contrived.

Akshay changes shades from crooked to straight, like a chameleon. In top-form, he puts up a perfect display of a street-smart lawyer who hasn’t read legal tomes but who has instead picked up tips from courtroom corridors to become Jolly LLB. Huma and Annu are also compelling enough. It is the fine display of histrionics by all these refined actors, which makes the movie, worth seeing.