Picture courtesy: Eros Films and Salman Khan Films
Venue: DTs Cinema, Shalimar Bagh
Date: 22 July 2015
Salman Khan did it again. One more average film enters the “100 crore club”. Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Salman Khan’s latest production as the main actor as well as the producer en-cashes on India Pakistan rivalry. This time around he included a couple of co-stars – Nawazuddin Siddique and Harshaali Malhotra in an over the top Bollywood masala film.
Salman Khan is still the darling of the masses and manages to pull audience to the theaters but we find him boring and fake. In his earlier films Dabangg, Ready and Kick, he wooed the audience by slapstick comedy and action. Only this time he took the Raj Kapoor way and portrayed a simpleton (Mera Naam Joker/ Jish Desh Mai Ganga Behti Hai kinds) and ended up looking and acting like Ravi Kissen (yes the Bhojpuri actor… somehow there’s terrible similarity).
Talking about Raj Kapoor and Pakistan, we had seen Henna on almost same topic years back and it was a hundred times better film. Only conceptualized by Raj Kapoor and finished by Randhir Kapoor after his death, Henna also dealt with accidentally crossing the border and finding the way home with the help of a local. But Henna was decorated with awesome music, breathtaking visuals and a solid love story. Bajrangi Bhaijaan, in contrast has no love and no story. Bhajrangi’s love interest played by Kareena Kapoor clearly did this role because nobody says no to “Bhai”.
Little Harshaali is just a pretty kid. Although she managed to make women cry, we could not spot any promise in her as an actor. The only saving grace is Nawazuddin Siddique who played a freelance reporter in Pakistan and made Bajrangi (Salman if you haven’t guessed) “Bhaijaan”. He is a complete natural in this film with an extremely frivolous script.
One thing that one expects from a Bollywood potboiler is entertainment. Sadly, this film doesn’t even entertain because of the slow pace, lack of any decent music and an unduly long duration. A cameo by Adnan Sami in a sufi qawwali was also unimpressive.
Salman khan’s saying “Jai Sriram” repetitively is out of context and reference to Bajrang Bali again and again makes this boring film insufferable.
Once again we wonder at the miracle called Salman Khan.
We may try to look without the comparisons with some old movies. The effort was to present a package that offers entertainment to the family crowds and I feel it has been successful. Even if some comparisons are to be made, the treatment of the movie may be poor in some aspects in comparisons to that of some old movies. At the same time the movie has become successful in the same way as some Amitabh Bachchan’s stupid blockbusters did in late 70s and 80s if not more in terms of revenue collection of course keeping ‘inflation’ in mind. So this may not be the miracle called Sallu Bhai or Big B rather than the mainstream Indian audience which in most cases stands for ‘predictable’ miracle, really something greatly paradoxical.
Super man… Salmaan ka fan… 🙂