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.
Ajeya: The Invincible's Crucible 