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The story of an uncorrupted braggart who undergoes a change of heart in the company of a good woman is an ancient one. Nitesh Tiwari’s ‘Bawaal’ promises us more, by trying to make this arc bigger and deeper, but it keeps faltering, and we never quite know what to make of a frantic plot flourish. Which is unfortunate, because this movie had the potential to be something different.
Ajay aka Ajju (Varun DhawanHe spends all his waking hours polishing and polishing the image he has so diligently created of himself: a man about town, booty talking. He has an actual job, as a history teacher at a local school. But seeing that his knowledge base about anything and everything seems to be zero, he stops wasting his time and everyone else in his surroundings, including his long-suffering parents (Manoj Pahwa and Anjuman Saxena), and his best friend (Prateek Pachauri). Then, of course, he throws a spell at the beautiful and sensible Nisha (Janhvi Kapoor), and of course, his life changes.
Wait, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Before the expected end was in sight, Ajay and Nisha had made the trip of a lifetime to a handful of European cities that they consider most affected by World War II – Paris, Amsterdam, Normandy, Berlin, culminating in Auschwitz. Why World War II? This is because it is the subject that Ajay is about to teach in class. So what does he do? Why, stand in front of memorials to create reels his students back home were meant to watch in jaw-dropping admiration, and supposed to learn everything they needed to know about the war that shaped the world we live in, with a little bit of Hitler and the horrors of the gas chambers and extermination of the Jews. How was he hired? We were not told that. A running gag featuring a group of Gujarati travelers and their love of beadwork and shiny T-shirts, intended to provide comic relief, goes awry.
There are many problematic points in the procedures. One of the biggest (I’m spoiling this one, but there’s more than enough reason, as you’ll see) is Ajay’s appalling attitude to epilepsy, a condition Nisha suffers from: his visual disgust is shocking for a movie set in 2023. A rudimentary read about someone’s “seizures” is enough to know it’s a problem countless people live with, and perfect to boot. Ajay learns his lesson, of course he does, but not until his disgust seeps into the movie almost to the end. It is incomprehensible how this deeply insensitive portrayal is made into a watershed between the newlyweds: What are people with no idea about epilepsy meant from the film? Agju’s lingering fear and terror, or his very sudden, minute-long change of heart?
Bawaal movie trailer:
Which brings me to one element of the film that is the business genre: Varun Dhawan is a perfect candidate for this type of Agju guy, who hides his low self-esteem beneath his unpleasant bluntness. Janhvi is given an ungrateful role, which, while giving Nisha some moments to herself, always finds her to be the vehicle through which the hero is enhanced, the most common way in Bollywood to show a man-woman relationship. But they do have a sequence of getting to know each other in the middle of their tour that has a real sweetness to it, and you wish the movie had built more on those moments.
Instead of being touched by the plight of the millions who lost their lives in concentration camps, as our clients do, while walking through Auschwitz (imagine, an Indian movie actually shot on location; that really is a thing), all we feel is the feeling of being lost. The simplification deals with Hitler, “who was greedy for more countries,” something we hear in an actual exchange between Ajay and Nisha (you don’t say), and WWII doesn’t make for a history lesson.
Watch Janhvi Kapoor, Varun Dhawan and Nitesh Tiwari Exclusive Interview:
Forget the heroes, when will our movies come of age?
Pawal’s Cast: Varun Dhawan, Janhvi Kapoor, Manoj Pahwa, Anjuman Saxena, Mukesh Tiwari, Prateik Pachauri
Film director: Nitesh Tiwari
Bawal – Movie rating: 1.5 stars
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