JAWAN : Girl Power + Mind Blowing Action + Emotion = Entertainment Guaranteed

Thanks to SRK and Atlee, this is yet another entertainment filled weekend for the Indian cinema lovers.

The perfect cross of South Indian masala-filled cinema with the aura and charm of a pan-Indian superstar.

If you look at the story, its nothing extra-ordinary. It's a plain old revenge saga with a tinge of vigilantism sprinkled on top.

It has all the tropes of a typical Atlee film such as -

- Sorrow filled back stories of side characters shown in excruciating detail that will squeeze a tear out of you.

- Villain causing the death of the hero's wife.

- Hero fighting for the greater good of the society.

However, what makes this movie really entertaining is the screenplay and action scenes. There are multiple scenes that are whistle-worthy and that give you goosebumps when you watch it in a packed theatre.

There seems to be a trend in Indian cinema post Vikram to give the female characters a lot of action scenes. The 'Agent Tina' scene in Vikram is the genesis for this formula in the last decade at least I believe. Jawan takes that idea further and the whole movie is packed with multiple women performing swift, unbelievable stunts that catch the viewer's attention and imagination.

And boy does Nayanthara look like a 'Queen' with the Badshah on screen. Her eyes are just enough to tell how powerful the character is. I cannot imagine any other actress who could have pulled off this with so much believable authority. It's perhaps because of her other movies like Aramm, Imaika Nodigal, Viswasam that established her image as a strong protagonist that it's so believable in this movie too.

Go and watch this movie for the beautifully choreographed action scenes, SRK's charm, Vijay Sethupathi's menacing portrayal as the antagonist and much more. 

Oh and it also has so many strange call backs to other characters from other movies

- 'The Family Man' mother-daughter is paired in a scene together.

- 'Kaveri amma' call back from Swades

- 'Thangabali' scene from Chennai Express

- I couldn't resist but be amused thinking how Vijay Sethupathi and Nayanthara were a pair in Naanum Rowdy Thaan and this one is such a stark contrast to that.

If you liked Jailer, you will definitely like this one more.

Pathan : Only for SRK fans

 

There was a time when I used to like watching movies for SRK. After sitting through Pathan yesterday, I can safely say those days are long gone. I went in with really high expectations for some mad fun but was totally disappointed. There were so many things that did not work for me in Pathan unfortunately -

• Very fast paced action which keep moving so fast that my eyes ad brain could not keep up and lost interest very quickly. There should be some time/gap in the stunts so that they can be viewed, savoured and eventually enjoy the scenes.
• Poor VFX which was just distracting. Everyone, including my 63 year old dad could tell that the locations were fake.
• The movie also was perhaps not made for IMAX screen. There were so many scenes where some frames were just so pixalated that it again adversely impacted the whole viewing experience.
• A lack of emotional pull in the movie meant I just couldn't care enough for any of the characters. I couldn't care enough when Rubina betrays Pathan or when Nandini(Dimple kapadia) and her team gets blasted in their lab or when Pathan's teammate is blasted in a car in Dubai. None of that emotion ever translated to me or even my mother who can cry at the drop of a hat for a movie.

Overall, I feel that the bar for action movies has been raised so high by movies like Bahubali, RRR,  Pushpa, Vikram, etc. that it feels like creators of Pathan have just taken the audience for granted with an absolutely dated and below-average movie. Pathan is a movie we would have thoroughly enjoyed perhaps in 2012. It's not for 2023 and certainly not for audience that has been better cinematic universe movies to watch such as Vikram.