OK, so I saw Jawan.
(Is there anyone left who hasn’t yet?)
Let me start off by saying that it is brilliant storytelling. Every film, every story, must be seen in the cultural context of its space and time. And from that perspective, it is a film whose time has come. I thoroughly enjoyed it. In a fashion.
That said:
- The story is trash. I’ve seen better stories made up by the pet parrot my maternal uncle had back in the 1980s, and he (the parrot, not the uncle) only knew six words.
- The songs (and dances) are crappy. The directors (movie and music) couldn’t seem to have made up their minds if they wanted to copy this South movie or that, or this South hero or that, and ended up with each of their feet in a different boat as they, in the immortal words of DJ of RDB (with the appropriate paraphrasing), pissed on both, the art and the performance.
- The costumes are designed by someone who always wanted to be a costume designer, but surprised no one when they couldn’t, before the mix-up (or something similarly incredulous) happened, and they got this gig.
- The dialogue writing seems to be done by someone whose first, second, and third language is sign language. Or by a child. Of an Orangutan. Learning to put words together.
- The entire movie is preachy to the point of cringe. It’s almost as if Ravish Kumar wrote the screenplay. On shrooms.
- The self-indulgence is so over the top that any more and it would have achieved escape velocity and left the Earth’s gravitational pull.
- SRK is a fucking certified genius. He has reinvented himself as a superb action star. At 57. And he’s not done yet. Not by a long stretch. Which is how much more is left of his career. You can expect more dhamakedar action from him in the future. Frankly, I can’t wait to see his 10th film (from this point).
- He’s delivered two back-to-back superhits that will contribute about 25% of all Hindi films this year (I cannot confirm this, but I read somewhere that the Hindi film industry earns around ₹8,000 Crore annually, and Pathan & Jawan would make up about ₹2,000 Crore of that, and I wouldn’t be surprised if these figures are true) and has probably saved the industry from irrelevance and bankruptcy single-handedly.
- The older SRK (in the film) is hot (like in so sexy that if I were gay, he’d be my wet fantasy).
- Did I say SRK is a genius? His astute handling of political issues, his playing both sides, his self-deprecating humour, his refusal to take himself seriously, his candour and charm, his polished English, his lover boy dimpled smile, his disarming demeanour, his intelligence, his hair, his religion, his family, his origins, he’s used everything as a tool to live his life and tell his story. And not just on screen.
Go, watch it. As I take my date to Tambola at the club and make myself a drink to celebrate the resounding success of SRK, even at the cost of a small part of my sanity. Suffice it to say that during the film, I felt at all times as if I was in a prison and SRK was my jailer. Ah well.
And to my sanity, I say:
बेकरार कर के हमें यूं न जाइए
आपको हमारी कसम लौट आइए
