REVIEW: PATHAAN

Producer- Aditya Chopra

Director- Siddharth Anand

Star Cast- Shah Rukh Khan, John Abraham, Deepika Padukone, Ashutosh Rana and Dimple Kapadia

Genre- Action Thriller

Platform of Release- Theatres

Rating- ***

Bound To win wolf whistles and catcalls

Jyothi Venkatesh

From Deepika Padukone's outfits to John Abraham's well chiseled muscles to Shah Rukh Khan's CGI-enhanced six-pack abs -- Pathaan has whatever is needed to lure the front benchers as well as the fans of the stars that don’t let you complain, though sadly it lacks a meaningful story or digestible logic.

The plot follows India’s revocation of article 370 (special status of Jammu and Kashmir) and its impact on a Pakistani officer, who wants India to pay for this grave ‘mistake’ too.

The film revolves around Pathaan (Shah Rukh Khan), an ex-army man turned undercover agent who gets caught on a mission. He returns to save his country from a former R&AW agent Jim (John Abraham) who has turned rogue after he is wronged by his own people. An ex-ISI agent, Rubia (Deepika Padukone) becomes a part of the intricate mission and has her loyalties questioned at several junctures almost throughout the length and breadth of the film.

Amidst thunderous cheers and clapping which prevents you from listening to the dialogues the best and highest point of the film is when Pathaan meets Tiger (Salman Khan) and the two have quite an elaborate action sequence inside and then on top of a moving train. At 146 minutes, Pathaan bores you and seems a bit stretched in the second half when you start looking at your wrist watch and yearn when the climax will be introduced.

You get sucked in the vortex when you watch Pathaan, Jim and Rubina lock eyes and horns, as they hop several continents and indulge in a dangerous game of betrayal and revenge, on a wild spree to destroy and protect the worlds they believe in, though all said and done, the film lacks an emotional curve all throughout, with the director spending all his energy in getting action as well as glamor quotient.

Action overrides emotions for a major part of the film and without even an iota of doubt it is the magnetic presence of Shah Rukh Khan that salvages a less than even average script and a subpar VFX. While the background score doesn’t feel in sync with the scenarios, the title music manages to reflect the heroism and bravado on display.

John Abraham stuns you as a villain with equal ferocity and stands up against the sexy and smoldering Shah Rukh Khan while Deepika is simply superb and though she appears in the screen only occasionally in this men centric caper at intervals, she does succeed in scorching you from top to bottom literally.

Director Siddharth Anand gives an over the top treatment to his spy thriller. He presents it more like a superhero film that needs massive suspension of disbelief. His fascination and fan boy worship of mainstream Hollywood blockbusters like Marvel films or Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible series to name a few, is evident here. Dimple Kapadia a la Tenet lends the much needed gravitas and emotional appeal to the proceedings.

To sum up, I’d say honestly that though the film may not lure the guys who are hung up on emotion and melodrama, it is a film that will run smoothly at then turnstiles and also elicit catcalls as well as wolf whistles as it caters to the lowest common denominator