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Baby is a movie that could have been something. Instead it ends up as a weak-assed imitation of greatness. There' s the good stuff- A subject that most of the audience cares about on some level, a cast that can act, locations of incredible beauty and evidently the financial backing to bankroll such a project.
Now we come to all that went wrong. The cast is underused. With talent from both sides of the border, one would have expected Baby to showcase exemplary acting. While everyone delivers passable performances, there are absolutely no standout performances.
The characters in Baby are never fully fleshed out. Maybe the point being driven home is that the people by itself aren't significant, its 'Baby' that lends them purpose. Even if I buy that, the characters still come off as caricaturish. There' s the quintessential hero, a maverick who doesn't play by the book, and his band of merry men-the brain, the brawn, the b**bs(?). Also throw in a loving but nagging wife who ends her phone calls with 'Bas marna mat'. The antagonists have been dealt with in the same way. Apart from a mercenary and an ISI agent, the others are free agents engaged in terrorist activities because...well, we never get to know. However, the movie goes out of its way to saddle us with an intra-team rivalry that has no bearing on the story whatsoever and is an epic fail if the object was campy humour.
The dialogues are another weakness. The half-hearted patriotic rhetoric and the forced references to past acts of terror or terror organisations attempt to add nuances to the story but only ends up prolonging a tedious narrative. Some of the dialogues actually elicit unintentional snickers- particularly, the superficial discussions of plans (passed off as terse Army speak or some such thing) and the almost hilarious interrogation scenes. At one point, the subject of an interrogation says he is 23 and an engineer, only for Akshay Kumar's character to respond with a 'So you're cool and smart'. Huh??
Like I said, it could have been something. Instead its going to have to deal with the inevitable and unfavourable comparisons to other movies in the genre
Now we come to all that went wrong. The cast is underused. With talent from both sides of the border, one would have expected Baby to showcase exemplary acting. While everyone delivers passable performances, there are absolutely no standout performances.
The characters in Baby are never fully fleshed out. Maybe the point being driven home is that the people by itself aren't significant, its 'Baby' that lends them purpose. Even if I buy that, the characters still come off as caricaturish. There' s the quintessential hero, a maverick who doesn't play by the book, and his band of merry men-the brain, the brawn, the b**bs(?). Also throw in a loving but nagging wife who ends her phone calls with 'Bas marna mat'. The antagonists have been dealt with in the same way. Apart from a mercenary and an ISI agent, the others are free agents engaged in terrorist activities because...well, we never get to know. However, the movie goes out of its way to saddle us with an intra-team rivalry that has no bearing on the story whatsoever and is an epic fail if the object was campy humour.
The dialogues are another weakness. The half-hearted patriotic rhetoric and the forced references to past acts of terror or terror organisations attempt to add nuances to the story but only ends up prolonging a tedious narrative. Some of the dialogues actually elicit unintentional snickers- particularly, the superficial discussions of plans (passed off as terse Army speak or some such thing) and the almost hilarious interrogation scenes. At one point, the subject of an interrogation says he is 23 and an engineer, only for Akshay Kumar's character to respond with a 'So you're cool and smart'. Huh??
Like I said, it could have been something. Instead its going to have to deal with the inevitable and unfavourable comparisons to other movies in the genre
Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai
Anupamaa
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