Baby John movie review: Varun Dhawan gets his chance to be a massive action hero, but Kalees’ remake of Theri remains choppy and soulless for the most part.
Baby John movie review: If you think about it, all action films pretty much follow the same template: a wronged man/righteous cop gets into a tussle with someone powerful. His entire world is turned upside down, and he seeks revenge. It sees an end when the antagonist is defeated/ dies.
The art, then, lies in making your film stand out despite the predictability. One is reminded of how fun Rowdy Rathore was purely because its lead star, Akshay Kumar, infused his double role with his trademark quirks. When that happens, you seldom remember the film had its lows. Does the same happen with Baby John too?
What is Baby John about?
Varun Dhawan, the lead actor, finally gets his first full-blown actioner, a remake of Vijay’s 2016 Tamil film Theri. He’s been trying to break into the genre for some time now (Dishoom, 2016), but here he gets his massy introduction as ‘VD’. The story starts with Baby John, who lives with his young daughter Khushi (Zara Zyanna) in a quaint part of Kerala. He avoids getting into confrontations, but one day, a cop calls him by his name ‘Satya’- and you sense there’s a backstory. Flashback to six years ago. We are introduced to IPS Satya Varma, a righteous man who believes in ‘good vibes only’. He is devastated when a teenage girl is raped and killed by the son of a powerful man Nanaji (Jackie Shroff). What happens next is the rest of the story. Giving away anything more would rob you of discovering the film yourself, if you haven’t seen Theri already.
The hits and the misses
The film starts off on a very choppy note, and there’s no soul for about 40 minutes. There’s no sense of direction, and the cute girl bossing around her dad has no effect. Atlee, who has earlier delivered Jawan as a director and Theri as well, is responsible for the story here. The hero playing a double role seems to be his favourite. He did the same with Shah Rukh Khan in Jawan. Oh, another thing he loves is the pigeons. He loves using them to create a flutter, literally. Copy pasted from Jawan here. There’s also a social message thrown in for good measure. But it amounts to a mish-mash.
The fun begins only when the elevation sequence arrives towards the intermission. Varun, who is okay otherwise, finds his groove after a very long wait in Baby John. When he lands a punch, you believe it in the action designed by Sunil Rodrigues. What helps big time is the background score by Thaman S, and the atmospherics post intermission. What doesn’t is the dull music he composed.
The second half further lends the film its much-needed fun quotient. Watch out for Ramsevak/ Jackky’s (Rajpal Yadav) killer line about comedy- he makes you cheer! What keeps things interesting is Jackie’s turn as the villain here. He’s bang on. Antagonists are really important for such masala potboilers. Where’s the fun of watching the hero defeat him if the villain’s weak?
Wamiqa Gabbi as Tara, Khushi’s teacher/ a twist, is okay. But the character has no impact on the story. Keerthy Suresh, who makes her Hindi debut here as Meera, does her job well. She stars as Satya’s wife, who is introduced as a doctor- and her profession vanishes as she finds her perfect life in a ‘loving husband, mother-like MIL and a lovely kid’. Her words, not mine.
