Shobhaa De: Real Salman Please Stand Up

It's me! I have a problem with a goody-goody Salman Khan. I vastly prefer the wildly OTT rascala, ripping off his shirt and spouting risque lines. I buy stereotypes. There. I have confessed. Which is why, after sitting through 159 minutes drowning in malpua syrup, I came home and reached for my Hanuman Chalisa. After reciting it 159 times, I was still not feeling better. I don't suffer from diabetes, or else I would have given myself a hefty shot of insulin just as an additional precaution.

Bajrangi Bhaijaan will go on to make several hundred crores. That's a given. The thing is I have a problem with movies that manipulate... Now several movies are guilty of that - but this one has a specific sub-text (let's not go into the details of what that sub-text is - if you follow the news dealing with high-profile criminal cases, you already know the context). And that sub-text dominates the entire movie, reducing it to an ad commercial for a super efficient detergent ("my shirt washes whiter").

So long as viewers don't dodge the real message of BB - and it's not the obvious Indo-Pak bhai-bhai one - the implausible story becomes more palatable. It certainly appears as if the entire team carefully picked a theme that would project Salman Khan as a larger-than-life do-gooder, incapable of telling an untruth, or hurting a fly (unless that fly comes in the way - as in the fight sequence at the brothel). At this point, I said to myself, maybe a special screening can be held for cops and judges dealing with the ongoing, emotionally-charged hit-and-run case. Why not go the whole hog?

Salman playing a simpleton is a grand idea. But this simpleton is played so broadly, there are times one wonders whether it's a send up. The only superbly timed, wickedly funny line in the movie is when when Salman is asked, "Bhaiya, yeh 'selfie' kya hota hai?" and Salman (Pawan Kumar Chaturvedi in the film - but Salman Khan all the way), quips, "Jab khud ki lete hain na..." long pause. Then "... tasveer." This line sums up Brand Salman. And no matter how sincerely and strenuously Kabir Khan, the director, tries to remould the essential Salman into a namby-pamby, devout Hanuman bhakt who bows and prays to every passing monkey (really!!!!), fans wait for the asli Salman to emerge. I did. I was counting the minutes and saying, "Okay... here comes the turning point... this is when Salman will drop that cloying, simpering, irritating sweetness and be himself." I waited in vain.

Since the star is in every frame virtually, we are stuck. But mercifully he has stiff competition from an angelic six-year-old superstar called Harshaali Malhotra, who wordlessly steals the show from Salman. Then, of course, there is Nawazuddin Siddiqui! Now, why didn't Kabir Khan introduce Chand Nawaab much, much earlier? Like I had tweeted, "More Nawaz, less awaaz", would have added a great deal of histrionic oomph to the narrative.

Now to the key question: was I bored out of my skull? Ummm. No. Only in parts, during the first half. These days audiences are grateful if there is even a semblance of a coherent plot and some sort of a story that holds a blockbuster together. We are used to passively watching a string of mindless scenes, and arrogantly calling that mess a movie. BBdoes have a story - Allah be praised! And it also follows a linear graph, with a conventional beginning, middle and end. Where it flounders, and flounders badly, is when it piles on the cliches. I was pretty astonished by the rather crass caste-ist remarks about 'fair' Brahmins, and meat-eating 'Kshatriyas' who also happen to be 'fair'. Equally, the references to 'Mohammedans' and their food habits were most distasteful.

Whatever the claims about BB being a movie that celebrates love over hate, friendship over enmity, empathy over suspicion (which it indeed does), most Salman Khan bhakts came away worrying about just one question: will his well-timed performance as an ambassador of peace and pyaar keep him out of jail??

(Shobhaa De is an established writer, columnist, opinion shaper and social commentator, who is considered an authority on popular culture.)

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.

Story First Published: July 18, 2015 15:53 IST