Nothing screams ‘crisis’ in Hindi cinema right now more than Salman Khan showing up in his second ‘star cameo’ of the year – hedging his bets between two cinematic universes; hoping at least one of them works. Something works. This is not a spoiler, given how the film’s PR and fan accounts are enthusiastically ‘leaking’ his entry scene on social media.
Khan’s films proudly flaunted their ‘critic-proof’ status for a long time, but have looked increasingly silly in the last five years. Apart from YRF’s spy universe, Khan’s Chulbul Pandey has announced himself in the Rohit Shetty cop universe, and now alongside Varun Dhawan in the Baby John universe – where he’s called (what else, but) Agent Bhai Jaan. It looks like even Bollywood’s loosest canon is looking to diversify his portfolio, fervently praying to make windfall gains from one franchise. The devil-may-care swagger has been replaced with the caution of a star unsure of his place.
It’s a concern that is also circling mainstream Hindi films at large, where producers have for all purposes shut down every other film that isn’t a star-led spectacle or from a proven franchise. And thus, we have Baby John, a remake of 2016 Tamil film, Theri, starring Vijay. This is a film that feels like a culmination of Hindi cinema’s worst, laziest instincts in 2024.
Eight years is a long time in pop culture, especially in the age of the internet. One that makes a meme out of the screechy manipulative violin employed in a Nagarjuna-starrer. Sadly, director Kalees (an assistant to Atlee on Theri) showcases no self-awareness and even fewer flourishes of his own, content with replicating his mentor’s work frame-for-frame. The template is so dated that I felt embarrassed on behalf of the crew. Not content with just being old wine, Baby John might as well be hooch in a polythene bag.
DCP Satya Verma (Dhawan) is a daredevil, omnipresent, do-gooder, honest cop in the corrupt Mumbai police force. You get the gist? The kind of force where a crooked cop (Zakir Hussain) snatches a woman’s mangalsutra as a bribe to look for her missing daughter, and then coughs up biryani on her photo. The kind where a senior cop (Prakash Belawadi) unsubtly murmurs into the villain – Nanaji’s (Jackie Shroff) ears – when Satya shows up to arrest his son.
A still from ‘Baby John’.
Satya is the kind-hearted guy, who stops at a random traffic signal and when a kid tries to sell him something, his response is – “Do you want to go to school?” One action scene later, we see him gather half a dozen children from the spot, promising to send all of them to school. The film never follows up on whether Satya followed through. Only if life was as seamless as a potboiler. Baby John might call itself a pan-India film, but it is inherently a Tamil ‘mass’ film.
Like any self-respecting mass film – Baby John makes ample use of ‘cute’ kid being annoying as hell, dozens of wailing women about to be trafficked, children foaming at the mouth, close-ups of assault victims, graphic description of how a rape took place (“they used an iron rod”) so the audience can rally around the protagonist’s rousing speeches for extra-judicial justice. The film has two heroines, an industry parlance for “one of them will die around the interval” (hint: it’s the one who will constantly keep talking about the future, ‘forever’ in her lines).
The acting all around is half-hearted – Varun Dhawan is the most unnatural creature I’ve seen against a Kerala backdrop. Given how most Malayali male actors rely on the less-is-more maxim, Dhawan can’t help himself but draw attention to his antics in the most ordinary scenes. At this point, Dhawan’s antics (like his boyish sulk, or his frown) are so inherently present in each of his performances – it’s hard to tell one performance from the other. Seeing Dhawan play a character these days reminds me of Govinda from David Dhawan’s Raja Babu. Where he has the same giddy enthusiasm to play a cop one day, a lawyer on another, and a doctor on the day after that. But they also feel as unserious as Govinda’s portraits in the 1994 film.
The film’s two women – Keerthy Suresh and Wamiqa Gabbi – are forced to participate in their own humiliation. Suresh, making her Bollywood debut, doesn’t bat an eye while asking our hero if he’s spoken for, in their very first meeting. By her third scene they’re meeting each other’s parents. Gabbi, a spirited actor, tries to bring something even in the single-digit screen time afforded to her in this 166-minute assault of a film. She deserves better than this drivel. Jackie Shroff – playing Nanaji – dresses up like Betaal for some reason. If there’s one actor who has coasted on his ‘coolness’, smoking cigars in a villain-like manner, it would have to be Shroff in the last decade.
In many ways, Baby John bottles up Bollywood’s allergy for competence and good taste. They’d rather make what they think ‘the audience wants’ – films that are overproduced, tentative and plain dull. These come with pop-culture winks, hook steps that fuel a viral Instagram challenge, and the promise of bigger stars joining the universe. The audience, paying over 18% GST on their caramel popcorn, shelling out obscene ticket prices, parking fees, is determined to have a good time. It doesn’t matter how bad the film is, they’ll keep chanting: Mass! Mass! Mass! Mass!