It is no secret that Bollywood faces major adversity as many biggies have not worked at the box office. The success of South Indian films has actually triggered conversations on what needs to be done and fixed. While a section of the Hindi film industry is making an effort to improve things, superstar Salman Khan is repeatedly ridiculing the audience, thinking that the only thing they want to do is worship him. Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan, the official remake of Veeram, is so horrible that I, who wasn’t a huge fan of Veeram, had a sense of admiration for Siva only 15 minutes into Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan.
Our hero has no proper name, and everyone calls him Bhaijaan. He is basically the protector of a gully in Delhi, and this guy named Mahavir has taken the quotation to empty this gully. Bhaijaan was against the idea of marriage as he feared it would affect his relationship with his brothers Moh, Ishq, and Love. What we see in Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan is the changes in the life of these brothers when a girl named Bhagya comes into the life of Bhaijaan.
From the hero’s introduction, which has him waiting for the whistles of the people in the neighborhood, Farhad Samji makes it very clear that you are in for something that will give tough competition for cults like Race 3 and Dabangg 3. The movie is, in a way, a pile of sequences that worships real/reel Bhaijaan in the most unsubtle ways possible. When the brothers complain about how Bhaijaan’s bachelorhood is ruining their love life, they get this flashback story from an uncle about how they were orphans and how Bhaijaan adopted them and sacrificed his life for their happiness. This scene from the Black and White era is followed by slow-motion shots of the brothers running in slow motion with teary eyes. If that wasn’t generating enough cringe, Farhad Samji tops that by introducing Bhagyasree into the frame as Bhaijaan’s first love Bhagya along with her actual family. Abhimanyu Dassani literally says, “I want to live like him.”
While Veeram had a more rooted visual texture to its credit, Farhad Samji’s world is entirely like a Rohit Shetty film. Streets are full of colors, and you don’t need much experience in cinema to understand that it is a set. The South’s stereotyping was one of the most annoying things about this film. South Indian filmmakers had called out the Hindi film industry for creating this caricature image through their movies. Even when trying to penetrate the south market by shifting the story to Hyderabad and having people like Venkatesh and Jagapathi Babu in the cast, the research department has nobody working for it (They still do not know the difference between a Lungi and a Dhoti/Mundu).
Since the movie had a major star from the South, it was inevitable that a heroic track should be there for that star too. And the placement of that Rowdy Anna track was hilariously bad. Even the kindergarten-going kid would know who they were mentioning. They had the audacity to make Jazzie Gill praise Bhaijaan’s autotuned singing. The dance moves, which were tweaked versions of gym exercises, offered a different kind of entertainment for the viewers. I don’t mind bending the rules of physics for the sake of entertaining action set pieces. But as always, Salman Khan questions the existence of that branch of science.
Salman Khan, as himself with a terrible wig, is trying hard to pull off the swagger. The blushing on his face hearing others praise him, can make you pull your hair. There are some sequences in the film where Bhaijaan is crying, and the emotion just doesn’t fit his body language. In a scene that was supposed to make fun of the eccentric South Indians, Farhad Samji makes fun of Salman’s limited set of expressions. Thankfully you don’t have the distraction of that lousy wig in the second half. Pooja Hegde’s main job is to look pretty, and she has done that part very neatly. Venkatesh, as the Annaya, has nothing much to do here rather than being the pleasant and welcoming brother of the heroine. Vijendar Singh knows how to punch, but his 0.5x speed dialogue delivery had zero punch. Jagapathi Babu, as the psychotic antagonist, was playing yet another bad guy character; this time, the character spoke Hindi.
Veeram was a movie with broad strokes targeted at a festive audience. In retrospect, I feel that Siva was doing everything to serve the fans of that genre. When it comes to Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan, the story and the genre is secondary, and the star becomes the primary concern. Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan is an entertainer if you look at it as a spoof of every Salman Khan movie released after Wanted.
Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan is an entertainer if you look at it as a spoof of every Salman Khan movie released after Wanted.
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended
