Baby John Review: Stale Vibes

The temptation for larger-than-life superstardom is understandable but Varun Dhawan is still too much of a Baby to be a John, notes Sukanya Verma.

You know a movie is on shaky grounds when you find yourself agreeing with a sidekick who scoffs at the hero's swagger, 'Kahe ka Bachchan? Machhar aaya hai. Massal daal.'

Truth be told, Varun Dhawan's good egg energy makes it hard to buy him as an indomitable hulk single-handedly taking on a battalion of goons and serving justice without worrying about the consequences. The amount of loud music and dramatic mood (rain, thunder, fire) gone in to make the actor look formidable is telling enough of how unsuitable he's for the job.

Directed by his assistant Kalees, Baby John is a scene-to-scene remake of Atlee's Tamil hit, Theri with a couple of inconsequential tweaks and a superstar cameo that didn't do anything for Singham Again and doesn't do anything for this one either.

Even if you haven't watched Theri, which is purely fan service for Vijay fans, you wouldn't miss out on anything. There's no dearth of potboilers recycling the same old masala over the decades.

A man's tragic past returns to haunt him and disrupt his peaceful life after he moves to a far-flung town and assumes a new identity is a tale so old, you could finish the entire movie blindfolded and still arrive at the exact same ending.

Treading on tough guy terrain in a plot that's like half of Suniel Shetty's career, Varun Dhawan oscillates between a baker and cop taking down burly, bearded men of Kerala and Mumbai to protect his daughter from harm's way as well as bust a human trafficking ring run by a shady politician (Jackie Shroff) going all out to protect his creepy son.

Only the clunky writing never lets any of Dhawan's relationships -- be it with mom (Sheeba Chaddha), wife (Keerthy Suresh), daughter (Zara Zyanna), right hand man (Rajpal Yadav) or friendly acquaintance (Wamiqa Gabbi) -- go beyond the cursory and is unable to decide whether the character should be badass or buffoon.

Between a kid's cloying cuteness, a meet-cute that could be mistaken for a Pan Pasand ad, Jackie Shroff behaving like a stoned Betaal, everyone from Sanya Malhotra to Salman Khan squandered for a meaningless guest appearance, prolonged sequences of melodrama asserting our hero's righteous traits and lazily inserted songs trying to compensate for camaraderie and chemistry, Baby John is a hack job of the first order.

In a better written movie and less choppy editing resulting in haphazard scenes and incoherent scenarios, one might have even appreciated Varun and Keerthy's charming equation. But Baby John's comedy, cut, romance, cut, dance, cut, drama, cut, momentum ensures it's a distant dream.

The charismatic Wamiqa Gabbi is wasted spouting the Bhagavad Gita one moment, telling Varun how handsome he'd look in a haircut the next.

What's the whole point of her character's obligatory sympathy, needless secrecy, god knows. Often the dummy drama's penchant for needless fluff extends its running time to an excruciating 160 plus minutes.

So much of Baby John, starting with that loony title, makes the movie look like a parody.

Like the time Rajpal Yadav goes in full action hero mode and announces, comedy is serious business.

Or a flashback of a lady cop undergoing training every time she's performing action scenes to explain she can kick ass.

Or a super raging Varun Dhawan meaning business and delivering a typical filmi hero dialogue to his minion, oblivious to a bunch of media persons capturing him on their camera up close.

The temptation for larger-than-life superstardom is understandable but Varun Dhawan is still too much of a Baby to be a John.