Review of Jawan

Some movies are very confusing. Went with my niece yesterday to see Jawan. It was, to say the least, an interesting experience.

Story starts with an almost dead SRK being rescued by mountain villagers, after drowning, with a few dozen bullets embedded in him. Village attacked by Chinese looking soldier characters. Hero who is still swathed in bandages, rises from his bed, wrapped  like an Egyptian mummy, and kills all of them.

Lovely. I like plots with alpha heroes, vile villains, where the  hero bashes the villains.

And then the confusion starts. 

I think the film wanted to make a political message. It's an SRK home production ( producer is his wife, who I am sure has no role to play in the movie. As in other parts of his life, the wife's role I am sure was played by someone else). 

It looks like they put a bunch of scriptwriters in a room, and said, list the problems that I.N.D.I.A needs to highlight. Farmer suicide. Ok. One sentimental farmer suicide back story and victim. Corruption in high places, callous disregard for people, siphoning off of health ministry funds. Ok. One sentimental medical scam back story and victim. Defence procurement scams, arch villain arms dealer. Check. One more back story with a victim who is hanged. Arms dealer is Vijay Setupati speaking Tamil. What do you mean,  it was a Hindi movie! Ya, but I still think he was speaking Tamil. I thought only mallus had an accent but to know what Tamil Hindi looks like, you have to hear Vijay Setupati. 

One more team of scriptwriters sitting in another room is in charge of the script for main hero and heroine. They have a brilliant idea. Have two two heroines. Nayantara, and Deepika. Have two heroes. Oops. Not possible. SRK movies have only one hero, SRK!  Every Indian, all one billion of them knows the answer to this one. Yes, you guessed it right. SRK plays a double role. 

Meanwhile, a third team of scriptwriters in another room comes up with the theme of soldier. Soldiers are in. Very patriotic and all that, and the movie has a political theme, so put that in. One of the SRK's is soldier! 

What about Adani scam? 40000 crores that Rahul Gandhi keeps harping about? Put that into the plot too. And the Thoothukudi copper plant closure? Polluting industries? Rapacious politicians hand in glove with industrialists? Put all that in too! 

Robin Hood! I like Robin Hood! Says SRK's son who walks into the script writers' meeting. Let's make SRK a Robin Hood! Which SRK? Both! Ok. Done. Check. 

One of the script writers is just back from California. He is still in an intellectually inebriated state after being exposed to the insanity capital of the world. We have to include women's empowerment, and senior citizens he says! 

Lovely idea! Let's include them! The heroine Nayantara will be a kick ass commando  kind,  and, junior  SRK's army will consist of six commando women. And senior SRK will lead a commando team of four senior citizens.  

Not enough women, said the returned California NRI. Ok! Let's make it a women's jail with 6000 women. And make junior SRK the Jailer. 

At this stage in the script, all the script writers in the room stood up and clapped. 

Then in another room, another team of scriptwriters put all the scripts into a cauldron and stirred it up thoroughly. 

A proper heady witch's brew emerged.  Which was then slickly packaged for serving to the audience.

You have to be real junkie to withstand this kind of brew. My niece and I are kind of deficient on the junkie scale. We were served slick, fast moving snippets of commando style fighting, political messaging, arch villain, old SRK, young SRK, 6000 women, sentiment, soldier, patriotism, jingoistic vigilantism, altruistic Robin Hood do goodism,  sanctimonious homilies, and Sanjay Dutt. They even resurrected Sanjay Dutt from the crypt of forgotten heroes and gave him a macho role. And SRK. Two SRK's. Our heads were reeling. At one stage we even contemplated walking out. But these confounded witches' brews have a strange effect on you, they hold you on your seat nevertheless. The mind wants to go away but the body refuses to move. 

And so we watched till the end. Niece went home, and I headed straight to a reunion with my college alumni gang. I quaffed on the draft beer, I really needed it! A heady end to a heady day!