'Baby John' Review: Varun Dhawan's Charisma Can't Save You From This Film
'Baby John', starring Varun Dhawan' hit theatres on 25 December.
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Well into Baby John’s second half, Rajpal Yadav's character Ram Sevak gets his chance at a show-stopping one-liner: “Comedy is serious business”. Turns out, so is making massy cinema – despite the obvious templates, making a movie that unequivocally speaks to the masses is ‘serious business’.
But in the nearly three-hour screen time, Baby John doesn't display an understanding of the characters or the plot or anything in between.
Varun Dhawan gets his much-deserved action-masala film with Baby John, a remake of Vijay’s Theri. Dhawan plays Baby, a doting father with a secret, who lives in Kerala with his daughter Khushi (Zyanna). The film doesn't want his violent streak to be a ‘surprise’ (it should have) – from the get-go, it's obvious that Baby is not a man who should be messed with. So the forced meek persona doesn't create the tension necessary for the inevitable but satisfying “hero” moment. Director Kalees doesn't have the finesse that Lokesh Kanagaraj did in Leo.
Varun Dhawan in a still from Baby John.
(Photo Courtesy: YouTube)
Baby John follows the Leo template, the Jawan template, the Simmba template, and ‘Baby John’ gets lost in all the bits and bobs it borrows. There is no novelty in the film but even that would be forgivable if they had managed to mount memorable sequences– unfortunately, nothing sticks.
Dhawan tries his best to carry the tender moments with his daughter and the slick, swagger of his past life as supercop Satya but it's all a performance. Dhawan is still immensely watchable on screen and that's honestly a favour to the film because he has the annoying job of having to make this mess palatable. All the lungi-kicking swagger and senseless (but postured to be vengeful and righteous) violence only makes you yearn for a Dhawan action film where he actually gets his due.
Varun Dhawan in a still from Baby John.
(Photo Courtesy: YouTube)
Keerthy Suresh as a doctor who crosses paths with who she believes to be a brash, arrogant cop (the film won't tell you but she's right) is mesmerising on screen. There's something about her natural screen presence that makes it nearly impossible to look away; both Baby and the audience are meant to be enraptured. With both their natural charisma, the chemistry is palpable.
This chemistry doesn't, however, translate to Dhawan’s scenes with Wamiqa Gabbi later on and it's not from a lack of trying on either part – the set-up is too rushed for any of it to (at the risk of sounding repetitive) stick. Sanya Malhotra in a cameo is blink-and-miss and yet so undeniable fun to watch on screen even for those few seconds. I doubt anyone else would've carried off the acoustic Sheila Ki Jawaani recital the way she does – the muted but effective comedic chops are back on display.
Keerthy Suresh in a still from Baby John.
(Photo Courtesy: YouTube)
Sheeba Chadha, as the quintessential Bollywood mother transported to the 21st century, has somehow perfected the art of not seeming repetitive even in similar roles.
Then there's the matter of the villain, the big bad wolf. You get three guesses to figure out Jackie Shroff’s character Babbar Sher – if you guessed an evil politician with a criminal son, ding ding ding. You win nothing. Shroff always gets the memo – the way he moves and almost contorts his physicality makes Sher more menacing than the script affords. But everyone is so cartoonishly evil that the writers have to rely on manufacturing graphic and exploitative scenes of violence (9/10 times against women) to create any semblance of an adversary.
Statistics of sexual violence against women in India make their way to the script but the film doesn't exactly understand what to do after that more than make the strong, righteous cop take an eye for an eye. He keeps fighting evil and evil keeps happening because the film reflects a very basic flaw in the way we look at systemic injustices – we don't address the system that propagates it, instead relying on one-off wins to make a ‘statement’. It’s obvious that the film is borrowing from real-life instances that do leave you with a knot in your chest.
But okay, this is a masala flick, maybe I shouldn't expect nuanced points of social justice from the film. We let it pass in Jawan; why hold Baby John to different standards? I would argue that the films are only marginally different from each other – Jawan just distracts better; much better.
Wamiqa Gabbi in a still from Baby John.
(Photo Courtesy: YouTube)
And without this nuance, the constant well-intentioned attempts to centre women in their arcs in the film feels like posturing. The only character that escapes this treatment (for now) is Gabbi’s. People actually burst out laughing when Satya tells his wife, “You were like a second mother to me”.
The ‘Baby John’ leitmotif and the general background score by S Thaman is a saving grace – there’s a foot-tapping quality to it. The action choreography (in the multiple action sequences) is derivative but still impressive. Personally, I really enjoy when people use objects from their environment in action sequences – evident from my ramblings about Kill. From PVC pipes to weighing scales, Baby (aka Satya) grabs at anything to use as a merciless weapon and there’s also something charming about the shades he wears around his wrist.
For better or for worse, Baby John does have the stylings of a masala, action flick but you’re almost numbed by how overstuffed the film is. It is difficult to enjoy Dhawan’s natural charisma with how hacky the film is. A cop as a protagonist is nothing new – Rohit Shetty is building a whole universe around it – but a cop as a protagonist that has nothing going for him except saying ‘good vibes only’ is even more tiresome. To be fair, the film also follows the cop universe template – the thinly veiled copaganda won’t escape even the most oblivious viewer.
So, where do we go from here in the Baby John universe? Because there will be more and if the Salman Khan cameo in the end proves anything, bhai jaan might have to carry Baby John till they figure out what the film actually wants to be.