Jaat: Bollywood stars are incapable of laughing at themselves; if Himesh Reshammiya can do it, why can't Sunny Deol?
The smartest thing that Himesh Reshammiya has probably done in his professional life, besides transitioning from composer to singer, is to embrace the inherent ridiculousness of his stage persona. For the longest time, he seemed entirely unaware. He'd perform bicep curls to his own love songs on Instagram, seemingly oblivious to how meme pages were responding. But something changed after Janhvi Kapoor went on Koffee with Karan and essentially pulled the curtain on what was maybe the greatest inside-joke of our times. Two years down the line, Reshammiya is starring in a movie called Badass Ravikumar and going on a 'Cap Tour' of sold-out live shows. It's genius. If only Sunny Deol had the same self-awareness in Jaat.
Bollywood, and, for that matter, India's other regional industries, are consumed by a seriousness that borders on devotion. How can Salman Khan poke fun at himself in Sikandar when people literally make pilgrimages to his house on religious occasions? Laughing at some of Rajinikanth's antics would probably get you stabbed. Anirudh Ravichander would have to leap off the stage and diffuse the tension. It would be a whole thing. But one thing's clear: half of our country's most terrible movies would instantly become 20% better if they simply realised that they are comedies first, and revenge epics second. For roughly an hour, shockingly, Jaat seems to get away with it.
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Directed by Gopichand Malineni in his Hindi-language debut, Jaat inevitably falls into the same trap that has consumed so many of Bollywood's Jawan clones in the recent past; movies such as Baby John, Bhaiyya Ji, and, yes, Sikandar. The second half is overwhelmingly straight-faced, despite Deol's typical brand of high-decibel drama. This transition feels more jarring because the first half is genuinely enjoyable; it's nimble on its feet, playful, and miraculously, in on the joke. For over an hour, the only thing motivating Sunny Deol's stock character is a stubborn, egotistical desire to score an apology. Not because someone insulted his mother or something — we learn nada about his family — but because a bunch of goons bumped into him at a roadside eatery, and sent his nice idli breakfast tumbling to the ground.
The head goon refuses to apologise, which activates the animal inside of Sunny Deol. Punches are thrown, heads are smashed into walls, a radiator explodes. Sunny Deol stops an SUV from driving away by tugging at it with his 'dhai kilo ka haath'. The kind old woman who'd served him the hot idlis is never heard from again; her unassuming establishment lies in rubble. The head goon threatens Sunny by name-dropping his boss, a local politician. The next thing we know, our hero is demanding an apology from him. The politician laughs in his face and promptly gets beaten up as well. He name-drops his own boss, a man gangster named Somulu, played by Vineet Kumar Singh.
Somulu has a thing that he does where he howls like a wolf for no reason. 'Aaaooo,' he goes, at random moments. It's all very funny. Sunny Deol shows up at Somulu's doorstep and asks for an apology again. 'Main idli kha raha tha…' he begins. Somulu scoffs in his face, only to get smacked senseless by a ceiling fan that Sunny Deol rips from its socket and waves around like a broom. He stops howling for a second and tells Sunny Deol that his elder brother is the dreaded mob boss Ranatunga. 'Woh tera khoon pi jayega,' he screams. Someone put this man and Chhaava's poet person in a room together and give them some ginger lemon honey tea, please.
Played by Randeep Hooda, Ranatunga is next in line to be hit with Sunny Deol's spiel (among other things). 'Main idli kha raha tha…' To his surprise, Ranatunga apologises. Sunny Deol is stunned. It's like he no longer has a purpose, because it seems like he was prepared to take his grievances all the way up to God Himself. He blows a kiss at Ranatunga and says, 'Love you, sir,' and leaves. We're over an hour into the movie at this point, and all we've seen is one man get an apology after beating up at least three dozen goons. If only Jaat had chosen this exact moment to end. Five stars, no notes.
Sunny Deol's character doesn't so much drive the plot of Jaat as he stumbles into it. You'd think that there would be a grand reveal at the end, confirming our suspicions about his character being some kind of secret agent sent to bring Ranatunga to justice. But no, the movie relies entirely on a series of coincidences. Had Sunny Deol not gone on his apology quest, he'd have never even set eyes on Ranatunga. Had he not felt like breakfast, he'd have never set foot in the old lady's eatery. Heck, had his train not been delayed, he'd have been in Ayodhya. We have to have a sense of humour about all this; what are we even doing with our lives if we're not pointing at the screen and chuckling at the sight of Sunny Deol addressing the two years younger Zarina Wahab as 'Amma'?
The big reveal that Jaat actually delivers is completely pointless. They tell us that his name is Baldev Pratap Singh, as if that's supposed to mean anything to us. Had his name been Kuldip Singh from the movie Border, the reveal would've actually worked. It's a clear sign that whatever playfulness that Jaat had in the first half was definitely too good to be true, and possibly even a fluke. It's possible, considering how hesitant movie stars here are to have a laugh at their own expense. Sunny Deol's own brother has convinced himself that inspiring Lord Bobby memes is the same thing as being venerated with an Indian Idol tribute episode. It's difficult to imagine an Indian movie star poking fun at themselves like Leonardo DiCaprio did in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood; in fact, Brad Pitt is at his best when he's playing absolute morons. Remember Burn After Reading?
Read more – Deva: Dreadful, dull, and degrading to minorities, Shahid Kapoor's remake is a mess of megalomaniacal proportions
When Rohit Shetty complains that audiences question the logic in his films but praise their Hollywood counterparts, he fails to recognise one key point. There is a difference between logic and internal logic. Cars will flip in both Singham Again and Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, but not in the same way. Were Ethan Hunt to hop into a Bolero and send it somersaulting down an empty highway in slow motion, people would most definitely complain, because it wouldn't be consistent with the internal logic of the Mission: Impossible movies.
Jaat establishes its internal logic early on, when it shows us that the ground literally trembles beneath Sunny Deol's feet. For it to turn into a soapy social drama towards the end, one in which several women are seemingly gang-raped by villains, is abhorrent. It would take a genius to reconcile such gaping tonal dissonance, and despite what Sunny Deol told BeerBiceps about his IQ being over 160, he ain't it.
Post Credits Scene is a column in which we dissect new releases every week, with particular focus on context, craft, and characters. Because there's always something to fixate about once the dust has settled.
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