In a post-pandemic world, the borders between on-screen and real-life Shah Rukh Khan seem to have become more porous than ever. As we saw earlier this year in Pathaan, and now in Jawan, his eyes brim with confidence in the introductory scenes as if he can already see audiences screaming with joy after getting a first glimpse of him – much like when he comes out on his balcony in Mumbai to wave at his fans and they go berserk. A star, who would once save some of his wittiest retorts for interviews has stopped participating in them altogether, and now chooses to relish his jokes on screen instead. After floundering in the dark for years, the superstar seems to have come into his own.Khan’s tenderness around women (on screen and in real life) is well-documented. Walking a tightrope of the dutiful son, vulnerable lover, protective brother for over three decades, it’s probably fitting that this very equation becomes the cornerstone for his latest star vehicle. Written and directed by Atlee, Jawan could be Khan’s most unabashed and successful foray into the southern superstar territory. This could very well have been a film starring Vijay, Kamal Haasan or Rajinikanth but this time it’s Khan who brings his customary light touch to it. Within the first half hour, I was already reminded of the Bourne films, The Taking of Pelham 123 – Khan channels a terrific inner Travolta, thanks majorly to a menacing bald look – Hindustani, Inside Man and Charlie’s Angels. It doesn’t matter where the ‘inspiration’ comes from. The only thing that matters is if it seems coherent, which the film surprisingly does in an especially robust first-half. Shah Rukh Khan in a still from Jawan. Photo: Screengrab from YouTube.Jawan opens with a gravely injured man (Khan) being found in a river, in what we’re told is one of the border towns. While locals nurse him back to health, the village is attacked by an army purported to be ‘rebel’ forces. As the locals get hacked to death, and the elders pray to their deity for a saviour – connoisseurs of masala mainstream films already know what’s about to happen. The almost-dead man, wrapped in bandages, will rise. Cue applause in the cinema hall.A title card appears – 30 years later – and we see a similarly bandaged Khan at a Mumbai metro station. Is he the same man from the first scene? We’re told this man’s name is Azad and that he’s the jailer of an all-women prison in Mumbai. He recruits six inmates from the prison to execute his vigilante mission – holding a billionaire’s daughter as hostage along with a metro full of passengers and demanding Rs 40,000 crores. Atlee’s film is too busy to be bothered by the logistics of someone arranging Rs 40,000 crores in a matter of minutes. This is the world of mainstream filmmaking, where even such large amounts get transferred by pressing a few buttons. Except Khan, it’s Vijay Sethupathi who is having the most fun with his role. Playing a dialled-up, hyper-evil weapons manufacturer, Kali Gaikwad, who gets his loans written off by public sector banks, and cheerfully offers India (or Bharat?) up to corporations across the globe as a place to ‘do anything you wish’. He even gets a tremendous introductory scene where he’s speaking at the funeral of a bureaucrat who he killed the day before. Sethupathi’s part reminded me of Philip Seymour Hoffman from Mission Impossible: 3 – where the character feels like a cut-out on paper, but one that’s imbued with personality thanks to the magnetism of the actor playing it.Vijay Sethupathi in a still from Jawan. Photo: Screengrab from YouTube.This setting also features Nayanthara as Narmada – hardly the most competent negotiator. Tasked with walking around in flashy Ray Bans and pretending like she’s going to teach a lesson to the vigilante crew, she gets out-foxed by them on at least two occasions. I guess this is the price one pays for a blockbuster hinged on the shoulders of a male superstar – who might employ an all-female crew for the optics – but none of the women feel etched out. Except, maybe, Deepika Padukone, who seems to have figured out a way to make a mark in her limited screen-time, especially with that radiant smile. Padukone plays the part of Aishwarya, Azad’s mother.By the beginning of the second half – Atlee throws everything at the wall. Some of it sticks. Like a special appearance by an A-list star, and a son meeting his long-presumed-dead father for the first time. The flashbacks get progressively sillier. Khan is cheeky enough to slide in a dialogue about how “before they go after the son, they must deal with the father”. It’s purely speculation here, but the line feels like a sly addition after the whole Aryan Khan controversy in 2021.Deepika Padukone in a still from Jawan. Photo: Screengrab from YouTube.A lot can be forgiven given the film’s mainstream visual language which shamelessly assaults its audience with manipulative choices. However, in some scenes, Atlee pushes the limits of good taste, even within mainstream filmmaking. In one scene, the camera focuses on a farmer’s face who has hung himself from a tree, his tongue hanging out and his eyes bulging. In another scene, the camera fixes itself on the faces of children, who asphyxiate because of a lack of oxygen cylinders. While a film like this needs to scream its intent for the back benches, there could surely be a more-sophisticated, less-gratuitous way to do it. The issues addressed in the film range from farmer suicides, billionaires defrauding banks, a barely sustainable healthcare infrastructure, corrupt politicians, and faulty, cheap weapons delivered to the armed forces. I was half-expecting Khan to wage war on unemployment and social media trolls – but perhaps even mainstream fantasies draw a line somewhere. The action sequences are superbly choreographed, and dare I say, even better conceived than Pathaan (which was imaginative by big-budget Hindi cinema standards). Jawan, in the end, exists only to service and magnify the Shah Rukh Khan myth. A lot of elaborate work has gone into ensuring that Khan doesn’t look 60, including de-aging technology, though few actors can still naturally come across as disarming while clumsily spilling coffee on themselves upon meeting someone they fancy. The action scenes notwithstanding, it’s this effortless physical comedy that makes Khan such a charmer even after three decades.
