I saw Jawan today and ...
The last film I saw on a big screen was Ponniyin Selvan, Part 2, and before I went to see Jawan I had a talk with myself. "Self," I said, "although I don't know much about this movie, I know that it is not directed by one of India's greatest directors, nor is based on a classic series of novels, nor is the sequel to the previous film which had well-developed, memorable characters even in smaller roles, played by extremely good actors. So do not expect, Self, that this will give you the same kind of experience that the PS films did."
And with that said, no, this definitely didn't give me the same kind of experience but it was really fun to see one time in a theater with friends.
Big, big, VERY BIG ENORMOUS SPOILERS. Don't read if you haven't seen the film and you want to be unspoiled.
Much like my PS2 theatrical experience, I MISSED THE FIRST TEN MINUTES AGAIN, ARGH! I was counting on previews and they didn't have previews, I guess? However, I don't think I missed out on as much as I did by missing the first ten minutes of PS2.
There were lots of things I liked about Jawan, so I'm going to start with those:
The good:
It was fun seeing a bunch of South Indian actors like Priyamani and of course Nayanthara and Vijay Sethupathi. (More about them later.) Oh, and I did like the mini-Family Man reunion with Priyamani and the actress who plays her character's daughter Dhriti on that show :D (If only Manoj Bajpayee had been in this and/or Raj & DK had written the script, this would have been a different film altogether.)
SRK is very charming, but much more so in the second half when he was playing the much more age-appropriate Vikram Rathore. I'll get to why I liked Vikram Rathore more in the parts that I DISLIKED but I also loved that Vikram was very funny. (I always love when SRK is slightly taking the mickey out of himself which he did in the second half of the film. And I cracked up when he asked Suji if she was also his kid.) I would watch a whole entire movie of Vikram Rathore doing cool stuff.
I liked the girl gang concept a lot (I would have even liked it more if the boss had been Kaveri Amma and not SRK, but I don't think the movie would have ever been made if that were the case) and I liked all the individual actresses.
Nayanthara - she was fabulous as the task-force cop and looked so good doing action scenes. I love her.
Deepika Padukone - she's so gorgeous and I had some Om Shanti Om vibes with this, which is a movie that I really love. And the emotional parts were pretty good too.
While the political messaging was extremely heavy-handed, I did like that it came up in the movie, especially the part about voting. (When they stole the voting machines, I couldn't help but wonder if the scriptwriters had been listening to any of the insane election 2020 denialism in the US :P Was Hugo Chavez behind any of this? :P) However, maybe the script would have been tighter if they had targeted ONE social ill, instead of all of them?
Vijay Sethupathi - I will always just really like him whatever he's doing, because I'm like a duckling about movies and I imprint on actors based on what I first saw them in*, and I saw VJS in Farsi first, and loved him in that. SO ...
There was enough humor that I didn't feel like it was entirely taking itself seriously which is important in this kind of a film (though you didn't have to show people rolling around laughing to cue us to laugh, director Atlee!!) Let your script do its thing, dude! (Oh, wait, I forgot that the script was ... the script that it was. Which brings me to the bad):
The bad:
I'm sorry but the de-aging VFX for SRK was honestly a bit creepy - people drag Nayanthara for having work done, but I'll take her still-human face over the plastic-y face Azad. When he pulled the bald sock thing off his head, I really thought he was going to peel off his entire face and show "normally aged SRK" but nope!
I just threw up my hands and laughed when they discovered Deepika was pregnant just by taking her pulse. Why do they even make pregnancy tests, am I right? And I don't know about India, but surely they would have you know, taken her blood group etc. when she was first incarcerated?
Which brings me to my VAST apology to all Tamil movies in which I have shaken my head in disbelief that a man who repeatedly has his head whacked with a metal bar or banged into a concrete pillar doesn't even have a concussion, let alone a skull fracture. No, compared to Jawan, you are all PINNACLES of realism! Because SRK was shot five times, thrown out of an airplane that was above the cloudline, fell into a body of water and didn't break any bones, AND banged his head on a rock and apparently just suffered some slight amnesia. Um, ok then! (I think the part where the dude finds him and says he's keeping his promise to Azad might have been in the first ten minutes that I missed, so maybe there's some explanation for why he didn't die - but for now, I just have to assume he was the incarnation of Grigorii Rasputin. And I will almost certainly never watch this movie a second time, so it will just have to remain a mystery unless someone can explain to me in the comments or something.
The music was completely forgettable. There wasn't a single song that I can even remember the tune of, nothing catchy, no memorable lyrics etc. That WAS disappointing.
Random new subplots that made NO SENSE. Like what was the whole thing about stealing the elections with mafia money? Why was that even in there? And if it had to be in there, why didn't the SRKs just leave him to the mercy of those people who would have murdered him inventively for losing their money? And if they just wanted SRKs to kill him the way he got Aishwarya killed, then why include that subplot? None of that subplot made any sense at all. (Actually very little of that plot made any sense.)
Another thing was the women's jail/rest home. If that is prison, I am surprised more people weren't clamoring to be incarcerated. It looked much nicer than living on a farm. It was super clean and they seemed to have a ton of freedom even before Azad became the warden.
The way Nayanthara was completely sidelined in the second half. I also have no idea why she decided to marry SRK after five minutes. (And they totally stole her costumes in Chaliye from the Kannala Kannala song in "Thani Oruvan" - a far, far better song than any of the songs in Jawan. (See below)
So all in all, I did enjoy the film and I'm glad I saw it, despite its flaws. But this is not a rewatch for the nuances type of film!
*Kay Kay Menon, Tabu, and Shahid Kapoor fan for life because I first saw them in Haider. Which is definitely the best movie Shahid Kapoor has ever made, but Farzi was really excellent too and Shahid and Kay Kay were in it alongside VJS. Watch eeeeeeet!
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Jawan Extended Cut Review
Shah Rukh Khan plays a sophisticated Robin Hood of sorts, stealing from the rich and distributing it to the poor in Atlee's 2023 Bollywood film "Jawan." Read our review of this action thriller.
Whoa, I wasn’t prepared for the violent opening scenes of the 2023 movie ‘Jawan,’ which, by the way, is an excellent way to hook action fans – get the wham, bam, bloodbath right at the beginning. So the Shah Rukh Khan film starts off with a bang, where his character saves a village from being plundered by a gang of ruthless murderers. Soon, the mood shifts, and viewers are taken 30 years into the…
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The Shah Rukh Khan film Jawan is a big hit in Tamil Nadu, where it is predicted to be the biggest Hindi film ever.
While most Bollywood actors choose remakes of South Indian films, Shah Rukh Khan made an exception. For Jawan, he hired a director from the Tamil film business, Atlee. Actors like as Nayanthara and Vijay Sethupathi, who are well-known in the South, have also joined the cast. In the Tamil market, Atlee is also a rising celebrity. As a result, Jawan has sparked a historic frenzy not only in Hindi-speaking areas but also in Tamil Nadu. This is evidenced by the fact that advance booking has opened to a brisk response.
"The advance booking is very good," said Ruban Mathivanan of GK Cinemas in Chennai. It's viewed as a Tamil film in this country. If the material is successful, Jawan will be unstoppable in Tamil Nadu. It could turn into another RRR or KGF."
"Jawan can emerge as the biggest Hindi film," he acknowledged, adding, "the buzz picked up after the event in Chennai and after the trailer was released." On August 30, the film's pre-release ceremony was held in Chennai, Tamil Nadu's capital. This much-anticipated event will take held at Chennai's Sri Sairam Engineering College, according to Bollywood Hungama.
Furthermore, Jawan will face no objection from local Tamil releases. "Some small films are releasing on September 8," Ruban Mathivanan added. It will not compete with Jawan."
"The makers are targeting a huge number down South," said Vishek Chauhan, owner of Roopbani Cinema in Purnia, Bihar. As you can see, Jawan is a Tamil film starring a North star. The director and key actors come from the South. I wouldn't be astonished if it grosses Rs. 10 crores on the first day in Tamil."
Jawan also stars Sanya Malhotra, Sunil Grover, Ridhi Dogra, and Yogi Babu in addition to Shah Rukh Khan, Nayanthara, and Vijay Sethupathi.
Jawan is predicted to perform well in both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. On Friday, September 1, Venkat Prasad, Senior Manager of Programming at Hyderabad's famed theatre, Prasads, was all grins as he informed us, "The advance is tremendous." We opened booking for a very restricted number of concerts. And all eight shows were sold out in record time."
"The advance booking is more than any Hindi film and also quite fast," he added. "Even the weekend shows are quickly filling," he noted. We'll gradually increase the number of shows now."
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