Given the way movies are made today, here is a riddle that is bound to stay relevant for the next decade or so: how does a high concept film earn its blockbuster status in today’s cinema?

The answer: By being so utterly forgettable that one only remembers the gist of the story a mere two days later.

Judging with this yardstick, Jawaan clinches the top-spot by indulging in tomfooleries that go far beyond the comprehension of a normal man’s imagination. Mixing the flair of South Indian cinema, with a people’s vigilante story and a multi-character, twisty plot ala Money Heist, Jawaan is an exercise in reverse-engineered mediocrity.

It is designed to lure audiences with promises of emotionally charged, action-oriented storytelling. But, as one can guess from the tone of this review, it is an unkept promise. Besting Pathaan’s global box-office earnings, Jawaan is, thank heavens, a better product — though not by a wide margin, I’m afraid. Taking second place in a competition of losers is a sad win, if you ask me.

Shah Rukh Khan’s Jawaan rushes from one plot twist to another in an action-packed story that displays neither care nor intelligence

The film starts with an action sequence in the past — a bandaged man-of-action with amnesia (Shah Rukh Khan) saves a village from savage terrorists — and immediately afterwards, we shift to an action sequence in the present, where another man-of-action, also again in a bandage (also SRK) fools the government and the police force with his unrealistic strategies. He hijacks a train and forces a corrupt billionaire to transfer 400 crore rupees to suicidal farmers harassed by evil bankers and repo-men.

This vigilante, who apparently has an exit strategy for every situation, has an army of women who are wronged by the government’s system and their accomplices, the vile corporate overlords. The daredevil team includes Lakshmi, Eeram, Ishkra, Kalki, Helena and Janhvi — actresses Priyamani, Sanya Malhothra, Girija Oak, Lehar Khan, Sanjeeta Bhattacharya and Aaliyah Qureshi. Each is skilled in something or the other, and each has a tear-jerker backstory, sans any actual tear-jerkiness.

Heading them is Azaad (SRK), a jailor with a proclivity for dressing up in weird costumes and prosthetic masks, who runs a women’s prison where these girls toil through their unjust sentences.

The jail, we soon learn, is a safe haven, where everyone is innocent. All inmates have had hand-to-hand combat training, and when the going gets tough, are given easy access to firearms.

Azaad is hell-bent on ruining Kalee Giakwad (Vijay Siathupathi, truly bad in his craft). Kalee is a former arms and ammunition supplier for the government, whose faulty weaponry had done-in a commando unit led by Vikram Rathore — SRK from the first sequence.

Vikram is Azaad’s missing dad, whose guise he takes in front of the media when he plans his fantastical crimes. Azaad doesn’t know his dad is still alive.

In keeping with the cluelessness, SRK also doesn’t know something crucial: the art of acting. As if competing with Vin Diesel’s amateur acting in Fast and Furious movies — he bests Diesel with ease in another victory no artist wants — the SRK of today needs to go back to acting school, along with Atlee, the film’s 37-year-old director, who should at least enrol in a director’s crash course. Both are insincere and uncharismatic in their own right.

Jawaan is a minutely interesting, overlong collection of episodic plot-points that are loosely knitted together to make sense — and yes, the knitting does make sense, and that is the first of the three saving graces of the film.

The spaghetti western/Ennio Morricone-ish theme music and the songs — courtesy music director Anirudh Ravichander — round off the other two saving graces.

Everything else falls into the substandard category. The actors play bland, superficially crafted characters; the performances are amateurish; the visual effects look a little cheap for a 300 crore rupee-film; and the heroines — the girls mentioned above along with actresses Deepika Padukone and Nayanthra (she plays Azaad’s love-interest) — are utterly wasted. Jawaan is a smattering of ideas that could have worked well if it were a 10-episode series. The film, with its nearly three-hour runtime, certainly feels like a chopped-up version of a series that one could care about, if it was fleshed out with care and intelligence.

Since it has neither, and that it has made so much money (the gross is 1,140 crore rupees), I guess intelligence and care are not what the audience is looking for.

Jawaan, whose extended edition is playing now at the top-spot on Netflix, is rated suitable for ages 18 and over, and has scenes of suicide, self-harm and violence — but if you ask me, the Netflix rating is hogwash. The film is family-friendly fluff

Published in Dawn, ICON, November 12th, 2023