Spoilers ahead…
Watching Akshay Kumar as covert ops specialist Ajay Singh Rajput in the new thriller Baby, I began to wonder if there was another star who would have been equally at home in this exceptionally physical role. Salman has the muscles, yes, but with him, the film would have turned more escapist and pop-py. Shah Rukh looks tired, and Aamir has the intensity but has to work twice as hard to register the physicality. Ajay Devgn? Probably – but he’s too dour on screen. You see him on the posters and you don’t exactly rub your hands and go, Now this should be a crackling entertainer. The younger lot – Ranveer, Ranbir, Shahid – are too, well, young. You wouldn’t believe them in the scenes with the wife (Madhurima Tuli) and the two young children, or in the scene where Rajput grimly guns down a team member who’s been tortured and practically left for dead by the enemy, almost as if granting him release. The stray strands of grey on Akshay’s face help us buy into the illusion that the character he plays is capable of doing these things, that he is in a place in his life where he would be doing these things.
The physicality helps too. Akshay surely works out as much as the others, but looking at him you don’t think, “Spends five hours daily in the gym.” You think, “Health.” He looks naturally fit, like one of those old-time wrestlers who, with nothing more than dumbbells and a proper diet, looked in peak shape. Akshay looks like a natural candidate for the missions depicted in this movie. There’s no backstory needed. We don’t need to be convinced about Ajay Singh Rajput. The film hits the ground running, and it’s because of the authenticity Akshay wears like a second skin that we don’t have to struggle to keep up.
The actor spreads himself so thin across so many genres and has so many releases that it’s easy to be fatigued by his omnipresence, but Baby is worth seeking out. It’s a fairly generic film – the good guys are gooder than good, the bad guys are the worst. Ajay is such a boy scout, he keeps saying “please” and “thank you.” There’s not a shade of grey in sight. There’s not a moment where we sense, say, Ajay conflicted between his desire to serve his nation and his desire to be with the family he doesn’t see for months on end. And when a junior officer is singled out as someone celebrating his wedding anniversary – in one of those bonding scenes so inevitable in these movies, where the bonding is as much between the characters as between the characters and the audience – you know he’s going to get blown up a couple of minutes later. But the lack of complexity isn’t a failure here, just as it isn’t a failure in the Bond movies. That’s probably a good comparison. There aren’t any girls, of course – Ajay is too straight for that. But there are guns and there’s a lot of globetrotting (Istanbul, Nepal, Saudi Arabia). What camouflages the comic-book nature of the enterprise is the flag-waving. If you have synesthesia, you’d see the militaristic background score in stripes of saffron, white and green. As one-dimensional as these characters are, some corner of the brain registers that there are heroes and heroines in real life doing these very things, and we feel grateful. Films like Baby help us put a face on the people who choose to remain invisible.
The enemies, of course, are people who are all too visible these days – they are Islamic terrorists. (The top villains are played by Kay Kay Menon, wearing contact lenses the colour of pure evil, and the avuncular Rasheed Naz, who looks like Dumbledore after the latter had apparated to Pakistan.) And in true masala-movie tradition, there’s a “Good Muslim” to balance things out, a young boy who almost became a terrorist and who’s now opted to become an informer. When a terrorist named Jamal is killed early on, a higher-up in the defence ministry congratulates the covert ops team leader Feroze Ali Khan (another good Muslim, played by a terrific Danny Denzongpa) and says, “Jamal ek gaddaar tha.” But Khan knows better. He replies, “Jamal ek Hindustani tha.” The real danger, Baby says, are those like Jamal, Indian Muslims who are being brainwashed by foreign terrorist organisations into disbelieving the national pledge – they’re being told, “India isn’t my country, all Indians aren’t my brothers and sisters…” But Baby isn’t about the whats and whys of terrorism. All of this is just a coat of paint to make things seem fresh and relevant.
The director Neeraj Pandey realises that he isn’t making a film about ideas. He’s making an action movie, a thriller. Baby feels long at over two-and-a-half hours, but there’s nothing that feels redundant. Pandey’s focus isn’t just on goosing us with periodic thrills. He wants to take us through the painstaking processes, step by step, so we feel the scope of these missions, the planning and coordination it takes to pull them off. It’s not just about going somewhere and pumping a few bullets into a guy – we are always aware that if things go wrong, Ajay and his cohorts (Rana Daggubati, a droll Anupam Kher) will be left hung out to dry.
It helps that, despite that running time, there’s no fat – no item song in the villain’s den. The only extraneous scenes are the ones with Ajay’s family, and even there, the outside always intrudes. In the film’s best stretch, Ajay promises his kids a series of outings, and even as he’s going down the list (a movie, the zoo), the phone rings, and when he doesn’t pick up, a second phone rings, and then a third – those outings will have to wait. Even at the end, there’s no loving hug, no sense of happily ever after – just the satisfaction of a mission well done. Baby is as good an example as we’re likely to see of a film that seeks to entertain but with a semblance of “reality” – it’s a world removed from the similarly themed Holiday, which couldn’t be taken seriously for a second. And yet, the “punch” moments are all there. Ajay gets a series of great comebacks – a crack about the “religion column” on forms, a scene with a slap, an interrogation that ends with the line “aadat hai.” And Taapsee Pannu almost walks away with the movie – not because of her performance or some such thing, but because her scene in a hotel room comes with such a devilish twist. Sometimes it isn’t just the comedy that leaves you smiling.
KEY:
- Rasheed Naz = see here
- Jamal ek gaddaar tha = Jamal was a traitor.
- Jamal ek Hindustani tha = Jamal was an Indian.
- aadat hai = it’s become a habit.
- national pledge = see here
Copyright ©2015 Baradwaj Rangan. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
Vj
January 24, 2015
I found the movie to be very entertaining although the first hour was a little slow. The end had a lot of similarities with Argo, especially the airport sequence. I guess the only thing that I think could have been a lot better was the action sequences in the beginning and it didn’t have to be so focused on Akshay kumar’s character for everything from planning to execution. Overall I think Neeraj Pandey has a 3/3 record with Wednesday still his best film.
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Di
January 25, 2015
I am going to go and see it in few hours. You start off praising the film but then the whole review is ridicule and criticism (sounds like that).
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Pranesh
January 25, 2015
Any plans of watching American Sniper?
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brangan
January 25, 2015
Di: Ridicule? Oh, that wasn’t the intention at all. Quite liked the film, and was just trying to say that this isn’t an idea-heavy film (thought this needed to be mentioned, given Pandey’s work in “A Wednesday”, plus the fact that this film had real-life overtones) but a more generic “entertainer.”
Pranesh: Watching soon.
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An Jo
January 25, 2015
BABY is a fantastic movie. Highly recommended. Great thriller once again after the unsuccessful but highly deserving movie D-DAY.
Forget the ‘reading’ into the politics of the movie. This one just milks the Indo-Pakistan/Hindi-Muslim uneasy equation and comes up with a great product.
Akshay Kumar is superb and is UTTERLY believable as the invincible soldier. There is ABSOLUTELY nobody who could have carried of this role with such skill and panache. He fits the role like a glove.
This man deserves to be slapped for making a mess of his career. This movie proves again what kind of a great material he is only if he makes better choices.
And mind you, it is not that he was always a good actor. He has come a long, long way from his wooden-act days of SAINIK, SAUGANDH to coming into his own with excellent comic timing in HERA PHEREI, KHAKEE and then blossoming into a fine dramatic actor with TASVEER, HOLIDAY etc.
He definitely could have stood neck-to-neck with Salman and come out trumps since he has metamorphosed into a far, far better actor while Salman’s facial expressions have remained the same since MPK. While Salman remains a superstar, Akshay could have been that superstar with that rare combination of attitude and talent and charisma..
And what physicality Akshay displays in the movie! Never an over-showing of the 6 pack vada-pavs; all that one takes home is his agility and his dare-devilry. Great show Akshay!
Watching this again next week. Highly, highly recommended.
And that Tapasee’s scene is one hell of a subversion of something we call a HONEY TRAP..
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Di
January 25, 2015
Watched it! BOY What a GREAT thriller this was! I wasn’t expecting too much (having misfortune of reading various unfavorable reviews before watching). I was hooked from first scene and the screenplay was so tight, fast paced that I when it ended it was unbelievable. The AMC theater was housefull (good thing for the movie) and audience laughed at various jokes, clapped when Akshay hit the politician’s secretary. The BGM was perfect (some moron critic panned it). It is great thriller and polished product coming from Bollywood. The only small thing, I wish they had hired someone else for the ‘hulk’ role. Hulk was way too wooden and had nothing much to do, not even dialogues! Batman needs a good Robin.
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Gradwolf
January 25, 2015
@Di Unfavorable reviews? Oh thought the movie is getting universal praise. Though I must say few reviews I read were bordering on the so ridiculous, so unrealistic it is funny angle.
It’s quite appalling when a solid mainstream film isn’t treated with respect and honesty it deserves. As if everyone every week expects a Lunchbox.
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Pranesh
January 25, 2015
Watched this on a whim after your first few lines were positive, and I really loved the movie. I wish some of the Tamil movies I so eagerly looked forward to (Kaaviyathalaivan, I, Lingaa) were half this good 😦
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Rakesh
January 25, 2015
Please review picket-43 (malayalam movie)
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vijay
January 27, 2015
Talking of American Sniper,a few years back I think in this comments space, I had mentioned about how our directors lose it after some point and how somebody like Eastwood continues to reinvent himself and keep himself creatively sharp and also wondered whether he has had the best Hollywood career that anybody could dream of (it is something like a Rajnikanth turning into a Vishal Bharadwaj well into his 60s). And he is still doing it, at 84.
Just look at his filmography as actor/director in the last decade :
2003 Mystic River
2004 Million Dollar Baby
2006 Flags of Our Fathers
2006 Letters from Iwo Jima
2007 Grace Is Gone
2008 Changeling
2008 Gran Torino
2009 Invictus
2010 Hereafter
2010 Dave Brubeck: In His Own Sweet Way
2011 J. Edgar
2011 Kurosawa’s Way
2012 Trouble with the Curve
2014 Jersey Boys
2014 American Sniper
Barring an occasional misfire here or there it is incredible for a septuagenarian
So all you blokes out there who were passionate about wanting to direct films but got stuck in the corporate rat race instead, Eastwood is your beacon of hope 🙂
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Arijit
January 27, 2015
what about imitation game and theory of everything?
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Mani AJ
January 28, 2015
The mind races to contemplate which South director / actor combo will ruin this as a remake – or as it goes around – as an “inspired re-telling”.
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Srinivas R
January 29, 2015
Mani AJ – I have a dreadful feeling, it will be Murugadas and Vijay combo that will ruin this.
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Di
January 29, 2015
BR, you should do a special write up on humor in Pandey’s movies. That would be fun read.
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Pranesh
January 29, 2015
@Mani/Srinivas: The only actor that screwed up a remake of a Hindi movie in the recent past was Kamal Hassan, and I’m pretty sure he won’t take this up. Shankar/Vijay did a good job with 3 Idiots.
I wish Hindi filmmakers made more of these movies and less of Singham remakes.
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doctorhari
January 30, 2015
The movie was quite a decent watch I thought, though the second half felt a bit too generic. Just wondering about the bgm after watching it. For me, it put a bit of a damper on the movie. A subtle score could have done wonders to this film, imo. Hope bollywood finds its Santosh Narayanan soon. 😀
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thotsvandi
January 30, 2015
BR – have you written about Azhagi movie? Tried searching your blog couldn’t spot.
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brangan
February 3, 2015
thotsvandi: No, haven’t written about “Azhagi.” Was released before I started writing officially about films.
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