At a recent press meet-cum-trailer launch, the media was informed that Baby John was not a remake but merely inspired by (and with the core idea taken from) the Tamil film, Theri. This was in a reply to my query that remakes of late do not work as the original has been watched across the country, and beyond, on OTT platforms.
Before writing this review, I searched for Theri on Wikipedia, and I alarmingly found that, as with recent poor remakes like Selfiee and others, the plot was virtually the same, but for some cosmetic changes—with some wrong changes included for the sake of alteration! The execution was confused, haphazard, garbled… and the result an overlong marathon of violence and absurdities galore with sparse emotional connect.
Make no mistake: I am a staunch advocate of entertaining cinema, even more so now that the multiplexes are making a killing and movies are no longer anywhere as affordable for a middle-class or lesser audience strata. But if films like Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3, Singham Returns and Pushpa 2: The Ruleare exciting enough despite familiar templates due to some smart moves, a film like this does not anywhere make the cut. The Theatrical Quotient is woefully absent!
In 2023, the Atlee-directed Jawan was a better-mounted project with all its absurdities, simply because it was gratifying for the audience with both the entertainment and emotional quotients and the spark (the meaning of Theri!) is completely missing. This time, Atlee’s presentation of his own 2016 winner as directed by ex-assistant Kalees lacks the quotients and spark in the final analysis. And it is sad that the makers are hoping to cash in simply because the film has no opposition, in its Hindi version at least, in the weeks to come!
Add some really noisy songs and overloud score by S. Thaman (even the supposed highlight Nain matakka is a musical damp squib) and that element is also diluted. It is tragic that some nice lyrics by Irshad Kamil are wasted in tunes that are forgotten, if at all remembered, as soon as the songs (mostly cut short at random on screen) are over.
Basically, the film narrates the tale of DSP (Deputy Superintendent of Police) Satya Kumar (Varun Dhawan) who cares for his daughter, Khushi (Zara Zyaana) after his wife, Dr. Meera (Keerthy Suresh) and mother (Sheeba Chaddha) are murdered. The honest and hyper-efficient and ruthless DSP leaves the police force in Mumbai and settles in Kerala at the request of his dying wife, where his daughter’s teacher, Tara (Wamiqa Gabbi) takes a liking for him. Of course, for the master villain, Nanaji (Jackie Shroff), Satya is dead for a while as he has arranged an explosion in his home.
Satya now calls himself John D’Silva and is christened “Baby John” by his daughter. They live happily with their dog. But then Nanaji comes to know that Satya is alive and wants to finish him and daughter off. And why is that?
Well, Satya has burnt Nanaji’s errant son (Armaan Khera) alive and actually had the foolish audacity to inform Nanaji that he has done it! Despite his contacts, Nanaji, who in collusion with corrupt cops, runs a racket of smuggling nubile girls abroad, must go to jail (only for three years!) and comes out thirsting for Satya’s blood (as he puts it, but how is that so when he thinks Satya died in the blast? Kalees-garu and his writing team ain’t answering that!). And whaddayaknow! Tara is actually Adhira from the police force! Ram Sevak (Rajpal Naurang Yadav) tells her the tragic back-story of John and she joins forces with him. But then she is also captured along with Khushi by Nanaji!
John, who swears by the purity of bringing up children the right way, and as cop Satya has claimed that he gives out “Good vibes only” then decides to annihilate the wrongdoers, starting with the evil cops (Zakir Hussain and Shrikant Yadav) and then finally Nanaji, And just when we think “Horrors! A sequel will be made!”, we have a final sequence where everything is wrapped up with a superstar who has, in 2024, made a habit of appearing in end-release cameos as a cop. Yes, we are talking of Salman Khan! I heaved a sigh of immense relief: Baby John’s “grown-up” faux pas of a film will now not be “sequeled”!
In this whole cinematic anti-climax, I pitied Varun Dhawan: this fine actor keeps on taking up wrong films (the exception was the splendid Bawaal on OTT last year) for some years now. He tries out an actioner but this film may have given him a decent role but cannot pack in what the audience needs. He is very good in the drama and dancing too, but it’s a futile exercise!
Wamiqa Gabbi and Keerthy Suresh do not really get scope, but expectedly the former does a consummate essay of her ill-etched role. Zara Zyaana is a throwback to the unbearably precocious Hindi film children that existed until Shekhar Kapur’s Masoom (1983) changed the film kid to a lovably natural avatar. Jackie Shroff hams as Nanaji when he was capable of much more. Rajpal NaurangYadav, as Satya’s loyalist constable Ram Sevak does his second unusual role after Vanvaas and again scores high: Destiny is clearly showing this veteran comic that his forte now lies in drama rather than buffoonery, and whether it is because of the name change remains to be seen. Sheeba Chaddha is as always lovable. For her too, December 2024 has been a memorable month after her exceptional turn in Bandish Bandits 2.
An arsenal (!!) of stunt coordinators from India and abroad choreograph the stunts and some are impressive. The cinematography (Kiran Koushik) is upscale while Antony L. Ruben’s editing on occasion seems languid and at other points it is jerky. This does not help the script, laced with ridiculous sequences like the attack on Satya when he is meeting Meera’s parents, or the early John-Tara sequences and last but not least, the way Khushi inspires the other kidnapped girls in a crate being shipped overseas! Sumit Arora’s dialogues hardly have anything impactful, and Nanaji too comes across lamely on many crucial occasions, a downer for a villain who must be almost as strong as the hero!
If you are hell-bent on watching a December release, please watch or even revisit Vanvaas or Pushpa 2: The Rule. But stay away from this highly dated movie where tropes are magnified and often obsolete, and value for money goes missing.
Rating: ** (Just about, as one star is for Varun Dhawan!)
Jio Studios, A for Apple Studios, Vipin Agnihotri Films & Cine1 Studios’ Baby John Produced by: Jyoti Deshpande, Atlee, Priya Atlee & Murad Khetani Directed by: Kalees Written by: Atlee, Kalees & Sumit Arora Music: S. Thaman Starring: Varun Dhawan, Wamiqa Gabbi, Keerthy Suresh, Jackie Shroff, Rajpal Naurang Yadav, Prakash Belawadi, Zakir Hussain, Sheeba Chaddha, Zara Zyaana, Armaan Khera, Benedict Garrett, Kaali Venkat, Sp. App.: Salman Khan, Sanya Malhotra & others
(Used with permission)
