Bajrangi Bhaijaan review: Salman Khan
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Up for a Bollywood-style fairytale? One in which two bitter foes come together over a revved-up set-piece involving India and Pakistan, flag-waving patriots, bigots-turned-pacifists, an adorable little girl, and a superstar named Salman Khan? Phir bhaiyya, and behena, ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’ le le re. The fact that the film would be a highly-anticipated Eid releases was known.
But no one could have anticipated that the stormy relationship between the two nations would be a Page One newspaper headline on the very day the film is out: the border is burning, and tensions are riding high. That’s in the real world. Just the right time for a film to tell us how it can be, in an alternate universe.
Why not dive into the reel world in which the boil can be reduced to a simmer, and a simper-and-smile, piggybacking on the one and only Bhaijaan, who is in search of redemption himself? You can have all these very complex , very meta thoughts running through your head as you watch the Hanuman-worshipping Bajrangi (Salman Khan, his blue-stone bracelet replaced by the red-yellow ‘kaleva dhaga’), the simpleton with a large, loving heart, and the Pakistani Shahida aka Munni (Harshaali), the little girl who’s lost her voice but not her ability to charm, romp through a film which has been unabashedly constructed as a massy entertainer.
It is also smartly aimed at the tear-ducts of those who sit on the fence in the matter of whether a performer’s real-life transgressions should affect the way we perceive his reel-life persona. Got an emotional jugular? Bajrangi Bhaijaan is coming for you, hammer and tongs. - See more at:
