Pathaan (2023) Movie Review

I watched this movie in the USA and have something to say about this. AMC gave a good 30% discount to watch this. AMC theatre was one of the worst I have visited. It was unclean and the seats were not that great. This was comparable to the Kantara showed in Regal which was also yet another theater may be in the verges of stopping there business, or may be they are all restarting from their revenues hit by pandemic?! This review is about Pathaan movie starring SRK released in 2023.

Pathaan film is also based on RAW, just like Vijay’s Beast 2022, but without the problems of it. The movie begins with a KGF1 style setting where the hero, with long hairs covering his face, is tied up, surrounded by villains. The trailer and poster showing SRK, looked like a makeover, unrealistic for the SRK that I have known. His best movie ever, for me is FAN may be followed by Swades. Throughout his movies, SRK has shown a stand alone way to hold any movie up solo, compared to say Amir Khan, where Dangal, Secret SuperStar, 3 idiots, Taare Zamin Par all heavily depended on the story and other characters. Pathaan is a different beast, where we see the best movie formula, chase, fights, game plan, game like adventures sprinkled with enough fun. The movie borrows enough and more scenes from Mission Impossible, James Bond series, KGF1, Uncharted, Batman series and may be some games. If you wanted to see all of this featuring SRK, then this is the movie to watch. If the dialogues had to be in Hindi, this is the perfect movie. If the setting has to be not India, then this is it.

There are some rare scenes in the movie, that anyone who is not even a fan would like. Such as Salman meeting SRK. Who better than John Abraham to play the villain, a villain created by system failure and policy gaps. Just like the one an Anniyan would do. I would anyday side with this character than the main lead. And it was a disappointment not to have a mass dialogue when the final showdown between these two ends. Any Telugu, Tamil movie would better justice in terms of screenplay and dialog at the end of fights. Per Wikipedia, Pathan is corruption of their original Afghan name, and has a history and background story of migration and interaction with other cultures. While I know none of them personally, there is some common terms that resonates with my recent blog posts. These keywords are loyalty, trust and work.

Throughout the film there is an evidence of people doing their work, be it a good guy, bad guy, or the double agent. They are all doing their job until the system thinks otherwise. I saw this movie as a job related confusion and a show of resulting consequences. Everyone keeps doing their job until they find some conflict with other interest. And as a result they assume an anti system stance. Because the system betrayed them and orphaned them. Don’t family come first before duty. Getting priority on this would have helped the villain much earlier. Without a support structure, orphaned and abandoned, there is not much to hold on to with a continuing life. Throughout Pathaan we would also see that both these characters go as in Tom & Jerry fighting and leaving and repeating, never really hurting in a deadly fashion. As in Joker, Thaniyavarthanam, situations can change a person. An inconsiderate society, an ill situation, a depressing environment, a bad upbringing can all contribute to someone going to nadirs of the life, digging themselves in deep without escape. It would take a massive undying Pursuit of Happiness, a King Richard, a divine presence as in Pranchiyettan & the Saint, a friend along as in Neelakasham Pachakadal Chuvanna Bhoomi, an unquestioning companion as in Peanut Butter Falcon. To save someone out. I was disappointed that Pathaan could not reason with and bring back the good in the bad guy, a system can corrupt a person so much, and make it hard to bring them back to life, and it becomes easy to assume that character to be branded bad, pointing finger at their own self-infliction, and rather easily, instead of other ways, push and shovel them into further depths and wish them dead.

Overall a good movie for SRK fans. And keeps the hero realistic without any idealism, that a Vijay or Rajni would have given this character.

Let’s write down the H1B Life Opportunities and Limitations, SWOT

H1B a temporary work visa in the USA has some rights written by the the Government here https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/visa-information-resources/temporary-workers.html

And there are opportunities and limitations. So let’s do a SWOT. This will be SWOT for the beneficiary. Not for the company, employer, USA or anyone else. Because , you know, well, USA life is centered around self. If you want to know an example of country officially built around family see my previous post.

Stengths

H1B is a temporary strength to work in the USA for the employer who sponsors the work visa. It comes with strength to build network in the USA and claim US based worker tag anywhere you go. You get affiliation for conducting further networking. If you do not want to get bogged down by the responsibility of being permanent resident of another country, temporary is a way to. Because it is temporary, it flexes according to the market. If you ride the market, then you are victorious. As a temporary work permit USCIS has put in checks in place to help the workers using this visa. Some common checks and balances are, you can work 40 hours in this visa. There could be concurrent H1B visas. There is a cap exempt(not for profit) and H1B cap subject (for profit) category.

If you are in H1B cap subject category it could help mentally prepare to ask for more remuneration, because it is for profit. There is no shame in asking for more money and it sounds ethically and morally correct because of the visa sub category.

H1B Cap subject visa is subject to lottery. If you win the lottery, consider yourself lucky. If you are lucky you can ask for more money. So it is a great confidence builder in faith, your stars and luck compared to some other category where profile is selected based on merit or profile score like Canadian express entry system. You will generally be lucky and can follow astrology to the core. If you feel life is not fair and every should have equal luck then H1B is for you. You are a person standing for equality, liberty and fraternity and equal chance. There could have been times in career where you needed only a chance to prove yourself. H1B visa a chance to ask for the chance to prove.

H1B Cap exempt category is for people believe in their merit and do no believe in luck and money. You will generally for such companies who pay very low salaries and struggle to live a life that demands money. USA is a socialist-capitalist country. You can only be on either side once you are a citizen. A US citizen either has no money , lives in tents, begs on the street and depends on the Government for benefits. Or there is the other category of US Citizen who puts money in stock markets through personal purchase, retirement plan or so on, thinks that USA has to be great globally but not so great locally, will go to any means, even logically, and morally unsound political decisions, to safeguard, have basement in their houses to save themselves from imminent danger. I really do not know the use of basements in the houses. Is that supposed to simulate a cave or what? H1B Cap exempt caters to the people who do not believe in the riches and money, but want can pursue name, fame, inventions, speak and discover. In general social terms, these are people who could not get a good paying job or do not want it.

Weakness

H1B is only temporary. Anything long term thoughts and plans are only valid for 60 days. That is the time by which another H1B transfer can be made with conditions after conditions after conditions. So instead of going through a lot of if, else conditions in the uscis rule book, keep it simple at 60 days.

Conditions: Any plans limit to 60 days. Anything more, needs contingency planning. Initial H1B is limited to 3 years, extendable to another 3 years to maximum of 6 years. Within 6 years if there is a pending I-140 approved then the temporary work status (I-94: H1B status) and visa (H1-B visa) can be extended indefinitely as long as you are employed. In a country where layoffs happen everyday left, right and center, not my words, NPR said this. Then, you truly live the quintessential American Dream, get a temporary job and work using temporary work visa. It is a match made in the books of USCIS.

H1Bs suffer mentally, emotionally and socially. They are foreigners and temporary. So image living off of tents, eating in paper plates in campground. Blah! No. H1Bs do great once they see opportunity.

Difficulty in getting the visa, renewing visa and other related Government documents like license persist through H1B career. There is stress of layoffs, job performance, and dependent visa holders. H1B dependent visa holders without I-140 cannot work or pursue anything. So they are bonded to bonded laborer. This does not fall under the category of slavery per ILO.

Opportunities

H1B is temporary. There is opportunity everywhere. It is only up for grabs. A permanent resident, would prefer to stick with an employer, do not move bases and settle in a location basking the good and bad glories of that particular location. My once colleague said that H1B advantage is the mobility. H1B can find correct employment at correct wage, because it has to go through labor conditional approval (LCA) and H1B petition which justifies the work authorization, in turn it prevents employer fraud, and gives a direct comparison to the wages posted by the department. Except the recent Caifornia state mandate for wage declaration, to get a fair analysis of the wage offered to the market use Wage search Wizard. So if you are on H1B you are guaranteed to have worked with every legal aspects to be correct. This gives more opportunity to explore companies that need a foreign temporary worker, though they will post the job as permanent, it has not much meaning in the grand scale of things.

H1Bs are the creme-de-la-crema greatest of the greatest wage earners. They can spend lavishly and afford anything and everything legally permitted under this visa category.

Threat

H1B is temporary. All the good and bad lasts only temporary. Life is temporary. It is more temporary for the H1Bs. H1Bs without I-140 can exit the country of USA. There are around 190 countries in the world. In that time if you had thoughts of permanency, it will be questioned everyday. It takes some special mindset to avoid thinking about next best visa, next best country, getting green card. What will happen to house, car, children’s education, return to work after stamping, extending to other visa statuses, stopping everything that was started in 60 days. And so on. These are common threats for anyone who would lose a job in the USA? Wrong. Exiting the country and selling everything is not same as staying with comfort of roof over head and stressfully hunting for job. And if the job comes, in another state you need to take it or lose the work visa status. Talk about the thrills of living the life of H1B. This the greatest mystery thriller in the small world of the USA.