Disoriented flailing of arms, some funny squeaky dialogues, and wide eyed stares juxtaposed with some catchy rhythms in soothing Rahat Fateh’s voice is reflective of Salman’s work till date. Watching his movies is an adventure that I usually approach if at all, with a lot of trepidation. I know they makes millions and his fans swear by his Dabangs, but sitting through script less lukewarm fares is not my kettle of tea. However sometime back we had a pleasant encounter in Bajrangi Bhaijaan. The second cup of tea that I dislike is physical sports which require people to bash each other up and ascertaining that there are enough bones crunched that may take a lifetime to repair. People safely behind the wire mesh cheer the blood spilling. Is this not as bad as putting poultry, dogs and other assorted animals to fight each other and something that is frowned upon, but then that is a different discussion.
Sultan alters that opinion in an entertaining manner in the trend set by Million Dollar Baby, Rocky and more closer home in the recent Mary Kom. Home grown movies in India also have the added splice of emotional encounters that can nicely fill in the awkward story jerks in Hollywood movies. But yet stretching it to 2hours 50 min was a risk. Indian films need to learn to shape scripts with sharp brevity and make them memorable movies. And people are running out of time. You see they have other tasks and responsibilities to complete. Like this young girl two seats away from me who did not switch off her mobile for the entire length of the movie. I wondered if she was taking serious study notes or perhaps tweeting the movie line by line. But one thing was certain. It irritated me no end. Like having a smart phone screen beam at you with its full fluorescence. I wanted to reach out and ask if there was some way for me to help perhaps do a bulk tweet from my phone too, to reduce the responsibility and load.
And yet as a sober Sultan (Salman) entered the screen play his new underplayed character starts growing on you though you do live with the fear of his jumping into his antics soon.( he does that very briefly in a song) He is a saddened recluse of a wrestler, retired to a quiet life in the irrigation department due to a tiff with his wife Aarfa (Anushka) the reasons for which become clear as the story plods to the intermission. Surprisingly you find little to fault in the storyline as it peacefully unfolds moving from the resilient wooing by Sultan of Aarfa and admonished for being a good for nothing spurs him into putting his and his well-built body to good use. The spate of medals that follows gets to his simpleton head resulting in an incident which paves the way for separation. So does a commercial boxing event organizer (something like an IPL event) manage to get an out of shape Sultan achieve his glory?
The movie is flinchingly predictable and yet manages to keep your attention thanks chiefly to the cast which embodies sincerity into their roles. Chief among them Salman and Anushka. Salman gets into the SRK Chakde mode of brooding and brings out a nicely underplayed controlled performance. The serious work on his body is visible as it fluctuates in size and shape to punctuate the timelines with his fame and falter. There is applause worthy scene where a downhill Sultan gets into a dressing room and has a tragic soliloquy with his emotions. Watch the unedited scene as he frustratingly struggles into a shirt while sobbing away heartbreakingly. That scene moves and proves that the till now man-errant perhaps has something deep down there to be discovered. Anushka deserves accolades for her characteristic support to the main protagonist though and presents a fuller answer to the need for fuller woman oriented films, however we see less of her in the latter part of the film. There are other multiple characters all around the script that do unfailing justice to their roles. You cannot ignore a fantastic Randeep Hooda and decent portrayals by Amit Sadh and Anant Sharma as the trainer, entrepreneur and friend respectively The photography is serviceable, the stunts obviously do look over the top but reflect the efforts taken. (Not surprising the main protagonist was pushed to make a politically incorrect metaphor). There was some controversy with the numbers but think that Rahat was a refreshing change and apt choice for the song Jag Ghoomeya. Wonder what prompted a serious movie to dip into an obscene and very badly contrived prompt for a song like Baby ko bass pasand hain..ugh ! Salman almost forgets his character and starts flailing his arms again before being edited out J. Shekhar Ravjiani do a decent job otherwise.
It is not a great film but one that deserves a round of applause for helping Salman to discover potential and the audiences to move Hindi cinema to a more appreciable art than just an assembly line of junk scripts intermixed with some rare gems. It requires some patience but takes care to keep you rooted.
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