Jawan – My (late) Flash Review!

As I write this, Jawan has already completed more than two weeks in theatres and has turned out to be a humungous box office hit beating many records. The film starring Shahrukh Khan is directed by Atlee, a relatively new name in Bollywood but a very familiar name in South India having churned out successive Box office hits, mostly with actor Vijay in the lead. Atlee is not known to be a very original film maker but I believe that all creative people in general and film-makers in particular are always inspired by others’ work and no work is usually 100% original.  As someone said, it is not important that you copy and paste. What is important is where you copy from and how you paste it. Atlee has been copying well and pasting smartly in the past which has been borne out by his extremely high hit rate at the Box office.

In Jawan, Atlee unleashes a “Copy – Paste Tsunami” on us. It seems apart from being inspired by other films, Atlee got too inspired by his own past work. You are not alone if the film reminds you of many of his Guru Shankar’s hit films, a few English films and finally his earlier films like Mersal, Bigil etc… The story is about … well forget it. Atlee has just scripted a story around citizen vigilante – a genre in which his mentor Shankar has all the Copyrights. So, for viewers of Tamil cinema like yours faithfully, Jawan gives a sense of déjà vu. But for Bollywood which has seen a lot of Angry Young Man and Robinhood stories, Atlee presents a potent mixture of it all with an overdose of vigilante heroism and 1+1 Shahrukh. The result is a mind-numbing film that goes all over the place.

In principle, I am not averse to simple, entertaining masala films that are engaging. Jawan’s trailer had all the trappings of such a film. However, the film goes overboard on giving it a masala treatment – with the result you get an average, over-noisy and tedious film that gets preachy at the end. In fact, the best moments of the film which are very few are all part of the 2 mins odd trailer.  In the past, it was Dancer/Actor/Director Prabhu Deva who introduced the Southern masala way of filmmaking into Bollywood with Wanted starring Salman Khan. After a lull, it is now Atlee’s turn to bring the next wave of Southern mass film fare into Bollywood. So, you have a typical mass hero introduction scene, many low-angle camera shots of the hero, slow motion walks and fast motion action sequences, loud BGM, the hero blowing away smoke from a cigar whenever he needs to make a style statement and much more.

I am told Atlee has been working on this script since 2018/19 once he got the nod from Shahrukh to work with him.  Probably, Atlee, also credited with the story and screenplay, needed more time to pack more Shankars in just one film. Usually, Shankar’s citizen vigilantes would tackle one social evil per film. But Atlee tries to tackle all of India’s problems from Farmer suicides to poor healthcare to corruption in Defence deals, political corruption, corporate ills and more in just Jawan. These social ills are all played out in flashback sequences with over-amplified and ghastly visuals – again a template mastered and repeatedly adopted by Shankar right from Gentleman to Indian.

The problem is that many of these themes and the over-the-top consequences being shown in the flashback sequences as a reason for the hero to take the law into his hands have been so re-hashed that, in Jawan when the back stories of the girls are told, we are already in yawn mode.  Some of these films have been dubbed in Hindi – like Anniyan as Aparichit and also re-made in Hindi – like Mudhalvan as Nayak and so even for Hindi audiences the template of Jawan may be quite familiar.

Shahrukh by his standards tries too hard but in vain. His performance is clearly over the top. Among the other cast, Vijay Sethupathi as the chief villain kills it with a not too bad Hindi Dialogue delivery. Deepika in a cameo also stands out. Nayanthara as the female lead is wasted with her role not getting enough writing justice. Shahrukh’s band of girls gets limited screen time to make any impact. And for God’s sake, what is Sanjay Dutt doing in the film even if it’s a guest appearance?

To Atlee’s credit, he mounts the film on a large scale with an ambitious making style.  The ordinary storyline is sort of made up by Vishnu’s cinematography and the action sequences which are pacy and well shot.  Anirudh’s background score is loud, louder and loudest as the film progresses. The theme and the style are all familiar and it seems he has also been inspired by his past work in films like Beast, Jailer etc.  Song and dance sequences are thrust into the screenplay and are ordinary. Even one of the songs resembles the Kaavala song from Jailer in its beat and tune.  The writing is good and some of the dialogues are obviously of the meta type for Shahrukh and are of the seeti maar type.

At the outset, I am surprised that the film got such a huge thumbs up even from critics.  To me, Jawan is a mind-numbing film that elevates Rohit Shetty’s films into masterpieces. It is an average watch and if you are waiting to catch it up on OTT, please do keep an Aspirin handy. I am concerned that its super success may push filmmakers to make many more such anodyne films in the future and we as viewers have the face the brunt.

Post Script: In a commercial that plays before the film, Shahrukh appearing for Everest Tikhalal masala says, “Main aaj kal action pictures karta hoon. So, main Tikha bi hoon, lal bhi hoon” But in Jawan, he is neither Tikha nor Lal!