Jolly LLB 3 vs. The World: How Bollywood’s Courtroom Jester Storms The Hague and Satirizes the Planet’s Legal Circus

The Hague, May 2024 – While half the planet debates whether the International Court of Justice still has teeth and the other half wonders if the World Cup will be played on an ice floe by 2030, India has quietly green-lit “Jolly LLB 3,” a film whose very existence feels like a referendum on the global legal order. Subhash Kapoor’s franchise—now graduating from district courts to a fictional avatar of the ICJ—arrives at a moment when real-world tribunals are busier than airport lost-and-found after a holiday weekend. Call it life imitating art imitating a Netflix algorithm: the world’s largest democracy sending a wisecracking small-town lawyer to the sanctum sanctorum of international law is either a masterstroke of soft power or the geopolitical equivalent of sending a stand-up comic to mediate the Taiwan Strait.

Akshay Kumar reprises Jagdishwar “Jolly” Tyagi, presumably because Arshad Warsi’s salary negotiations fell victim to the same austerity measures that have the UN Secretariat rationing paper clips. Kumar will spar in The Hague against a multinational corporate defendant—sources whisper an agro-chemical giant whose subsidiaries have been spotted in every climate-change footnote since Copenhagen. If that sounds suspiciously like the ongoing Monsanto-Bayer glyphosate litigation, congratulations: you’ve passed Global Irony 101. The film’s PR team promises “biting satire,” a phrase last deployed with a straight face during the UN Security Council’s “open debate” on Syria.

International lawyers—those hardy souls who bill by the six-minute increment while civilisation teeters—have responded with the enthusiasm of a tax haven asked to join FATCA. “Finally, a jurisdiction where objections can be overruled by dance number,” quipped a British QC between sips of lukewarm espresso at the Peace Palace café. Meanwhile, human-rights NGOs are already drafting press releases denouncing the film’s inevitable comic relief clerk, lest the character undermine decades of gravitas painstakingly built by—well, by mostly ignored amicus briefs.

The timing is, of course, exquisite. The ICJ currently juggles a genocide case against Myanmar, a maritime boundary spat worthy of kindergarten crayons, and a docket so crowded it makes Mumbai rush hour look contemplative. Into this maelstrom struts Jolly Tyagi, armed with Hindi punchlines and a TikTok-ready sidekick whose legal research appears to consist of binge-watching Suits on 1.5x speed. One can almost hear the ghost of Nuremberg prosecutor Robert H. Jackson rolling his eyes loud enough to register on the Richter scale.

Yet the franchise’s global footprint is undeniable. Part two grossed more in the Gulf than most Emirati law firms bill annually, and Netflix’s subtitled version trended in Brazil during the Bolsonaro years—proof that nothing unites disparate hemispheres like schadenfreude at a corrupt judiciary. The third installment is already pre-sold to 37 territories, including Rwanda, where the local distributor optimistically markets it as “Kagame-approved legal education.” If soft power were measured in popcorn, India would be running a surplus.

Behind the slapstick beats lies a darker punchline: the world’s faith in institutions is now so threadbare that satire feels redundant. When the U.S. withholds UN dues faster than you can say “Article 19,” and Russia treats Security Council vetoes like Groupon coupons, perhaps only a Bollywood everyman can restore a veneer of legitimacy. Expect TikTok edits of Jolly’s courtroom monologues to replace civics textbooks in at least three budget-strapped nations by Christmas.

The film will also test India’s own contradictions. A country whose Supreme Court once declared the internet a fundamental right now exports a cinematic hero who probably still files PILs on carbon paper. If Jolly wins his case, expect triumphant op-eds about “Brown voice on the world stage.” If he loses, blame will be outsourced—possibly to the same Swiss law firm that ghost-writes half the planet’s tax treaties.

Conclusion: Somewhere between the film’s item number set in the Peace Palace gardens and the post-credit scene teasing a spin-off at the WTO, Jolly LLB 3 crystallises the absurdity of 2024: a planet choking on its own legalese, gasping for justice but settling for popcorn. The movie won’t reform the ICJ, curb multinationals, or slow the Arctic melt. But it will give us two hours in which laughter substitutes for progress—a currency now more stable than most fiat. And if that isn’t the most honest verdict our species can deliver, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, then I submit we are already in contempt of court.