Atlee, Jio Studios, A For Apple Studios and Cine1 Studios’ Baby John (UA) is the story of a brave police office (DCP), Satya Verma (Varun Dhawan), who takes on Nana (Jackie Shroff) and his team of human traffickers.
DCP Satya Verma is a very bold and upright police inspector who lives with his wife, Meera (Keerthy Suresh), little daughter Khushi and mother (Sheeba Chadha). Even before he marries Meera, he goes after a gang which kidnaps girls, many of them school-going, and sells them. He not only kills Nana’s rapist-murderer son, Ashwin (Armaan Khera), but also has Nana put behind bars. Nana seeks revenge after three years by killing Satya’s mother and wife. After his loss, Satya leaves the police force and settles down in a small town by concealing his identity and taking on the name of John because Nana and the world believes that he and his daughter, Khushi (Zara Zayann), had also died along with his mother and wife. But once a police officer, always a police officer. Fate pits Satya and Nana against each other once again. What happens thereafter?
The film is based on Tamil hit Theri. The story offers no novelty whatsoever and often relies on scenes from past hits to piece together incidents in the name of a story. Kalees’ screenplay is so clichéd that it is not funny. Besides its routineness, there are many other drawbacks of the screenplay. For one, there is so much about girls, especially young school-going females, being kidnapped and traded, that it leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Scenes of suffering girls being raped and killed are so many that the audience often feels repulsed. Secondly, the emotional quotient is so weak that it wouldn’t be incorrect to say that despite the base of the film being so disturbing, the emotions fail to touch the heart. Thirdly, there is a concerted effort to ease the tension by adding touches of humour all through the drama, but the jokes and light moments almost always fall flat on their face. Romance is as good as missing. Even DCP Satya Verma/John trying to be cool doesn’t impress the viewers if only because the cool demeanour looks fake and put on. All in all, the screenplay is terrible. Sumit Arora’s dialogues are dull.
Varun Dhawan is miscast because he doesn’t have the personality to carry off the character of a man in uniform, that too of the rank of a DCP! In spite of being earnest, he fails to impress as DCP Satya Verma as well as John. His attempts at being cool don’t cut ice with the viewers because coolness ought to be more of an attitude and less of acting. Keerthy Suresh has not looked pretty and her acting is ordinary in the role of Meera. Wamiqa Gabbi looks good and is quite alright as Tara. Jackie Shroff does well as Nana but his unkempt get-up is an eyesore. Rajpal Yadav is miscast as Ramsevak/Jackie. His high-on-philosophy dialogues don’t have the desired impact. Armaan Khera fails to make an impression as Ashwin. Sheeba Chadha is natural as Satya’s mother. Zakir Hussain (as Baldev Patil) and Shrikant Yadav (as Bhima) lend routine support; they hardly get any scope. Zara Zyanna is confident as Khushi but her never-ending dialogues get on the viewers’ nerves. Also, her dialogues are often not very clear. Sania Malhotra lends star value in a tiny special appearance. Prakash Belawadi, Jaffer Sadiq (as Boss), B.S. Avinash (as Samba), Resh Lamba (as Vishnu), Kali Venkat (as Amba’s father), Sonali Sharmishtha (as Amba’s mother), Snigdha Suman (as Amba), Mona Ambegaonkar (as the doctor), Mushtaq Khan (as the principal), Mohd. Sahidur Rahman (as Amanpreet Singh), Omkar Das Manikpuri (as Badrinath), Khushi Bharadwaj (as Devi), Sadanand Patil (as Kali Prasad), Harleen Rupani (as the captive girl), Kiran Khoje (as the captive girl’s mother), Rajeev Pandey (as the contractor), Anoop Puri (as Meera’s father), Geeta Tyagi (as Meera’s aunt), Reenaye Tejani (as Meera’s cousin), Naresh Gosain (as the finance minister), Aadvik Prabhu (as Ronnie), Suvarnalata Patil (as Ronnie’s mother), and the others provide average support. Salman Khan adds tremendous star value in a brief guest appearance in the end.
Kalees’ direction is below the mark. His narration fails to hold the audience’s attention or to engage them. Thaman S.’s music is not up to the mark. None of the songs is very popular. Irshad Kamil’s lyrics are ordinary. Song picturisations (by Shobi Paulraj, Lalitha Shobi, Brinda and Rahul Shetty) are nothing to shout about. Thaman S.’s background music is often too loud. Kiran Koushik’s cinematography is nice but several scenes have been shot with less lighting, making it strenuous for the eyes. Action and stunt scenes (choreographed by All Arasu, Stunt Silva, Anbariv, Yannick Ben, Sunil Rodrigues, Kaloyan Vodenicharov, Manohar Verma and Bronwin October) are thrilling but don’t have even half the impact they ought to have had, because of the weak script. T. Muthuraj’s production designing, and Chackochen Pallattu’s art direction are alright. Ruben’s editing leaves a lot to be desired.
On the whole, Baby John is a routine and weak fare because it offers nothing fresh. It will entail losses.
Released on 25-12-’24 at Inox (daily 10 shows) and other cinemas of Bombay thru PVR Inox Pictures. Publicity: very good. Opening: not up to the mark (in spite of the Christmas holiday). …….Also released all over. Opening ranged from ordinary to fair. Of course, collections are expected to pick up as the day progresses, due to the festive holiday.
