Himesh Reshammiya has never made or starred in a good film, and with Badass Ravi Kumar, the actor/director/singer continues to maintain his flop streak. It's just that this time, he revels in bad taste and bad filmmaking unabashedly. In Keith Gomes, Reshammiya finds his buddy, and the actor has collaborated with the director to make a parody. Badass Ravi Kumar can only wish it were a spoof, a parody. Two scenes, though, take the film to its intended heights. When the titular badass accidentally spots his lover while heading to the airport, and she sees him at the same time (her car is moving in the opposite direction), we get a sad song sequence as the characters reminisce about their love. Later - much, much later (this is a very long film) - Ravi Kumar dodges lasers ludicrously while attempting a heist. Except for these two scenes, everything else drives you to sleep. A spoof works when it manages to give clichés a comic twist. A hero will jump in the air and twist his body to evade bullets in an action movie. In the spoof, the bullet will hit the hero despite that jump and that twist of the body. But even to execute a seemingly simple scene like this, the filmmaker must be witty. He should first be able to manipulate the audience into believing that they are walking into a cliché before pulling the rug from beneath their feet - hilariously.
Keith Gomes, alas, has no real talent or feel for visual comedy. There is an inconsistency during the opening scene, where the glasses on Manish Wadhwa's face appear when we watch him from the front and disappear when we look at his head from behind. I guess this is supposed to be funny, but Gomes doesn't know how to sell something like this. So, the bit merely remains a visual inconsistency. What's more, Wadhwa's performance is too heavy for a film like this. He's still in Gadar 2 mode; he's again an angry Pakistani. Badass Ravi Kumar begins with a reflection on Hindi cinema of the 80s. This nostalgic recollection is just skin-deep. It's more like an excuse for giving Badass Ravi Kumar a cheap aesthetic. Also, a "Logic is Optional" sign is taken as a license to bore the audience with jokes, both dull and boring. Filmmakers should face capital punishment for wasting comedy legends like Sanjay Mishra and Johnny Lever. Their characters bicker due to their common interest in a woman, but this "conflict" gives rise to nothing. Mishra has a double role in the film, and both versions of him simply exist. This joke has a sort of payoff during the end credits, though you will either miss it because it's casually mentioned or you might leave the theater quickly, thus ignoring that "Wait for the end" sign.
You can stop yourself from falling asleep by spotting references to other movies. Ravi Kumar makes a cross in the air with his hand, like Salman Khan in Garv. A woman talks about poking holes in the body of a villain like... Salman Khan in Dabangg. During a song sequence, Sunny Leone almost dresses like Priyanka Chopra in Ram Chahe Leela song. A heist reminds you of Hrithik Roshan's camouflaging tricks in the second Dhoom film. Even songs from Reshammiya's own films are referenced with slight twists. Tandoori Nights becomes Tandoori Days, and Tera Pyaar Pyaar Pyaar Hookah Bar is changed to Hookstep Hookah Bar. Badass Ravi Kumar is a spin-off of Anant Mahadevan's The Xposé, in which Reshammiya's Ravi Kumar, an ex-cop, investigated a murder. A line from that film goes, "Na dance, na expression, na pose – sirf expose." The women in Badass Ravi Kumar expose all right, but they also dance and pose. Kirti Kulhari tries to make something out of her seductive femme fatale, though there is only so much heat she can produce opposite Prabhu Deva's Carlos. As the big baddie, Carlos almost always sways his body and smiles, probably to convey that he fears nobody and nothing. We, however, consider the gesture as Prabhu Deva's acceptance of the fact that he has agreed to star in something anemic. No point in complaining now - just smile.
Did you want to know why Ravi Kumar's cigarette in The Xposé was unlit? No? Well, Badass Ravi Kumar still answers this query. The CBFC guys must have had a day putting all those no smoking, no drinking watermarks in the film; it also appears briefly during the end credits! I would have laughed if Badass Ravi Kumar hadn't been so exhausting. It's a headache listening to all those bum dialogues that burden you with so much exposition that you forget the film is supposed to be funny. We get a musical sequence before a heist that seems to run for eternity. I almost forgot that the characters have gathered to steal something. The super cop Ravi Kumar proves his patriotism by bashing a Pakistani and his country. He never misses the opportunity to show his deshbhakti. Ravi is a rebel, and he has faced suspension many times (he never did anything that could be labeled as morally wrong, obviously). This honest cop, however, seems out of place in a parody. He isn't turned into a joke; he is presented as heroic. However, the side of Ravi Kumar, who delivers "grand dialogues," is viewed through the lens of comedy. Still, we don't laugh either at him or his lines because his verbal diarrhea quickly becomes repetitive. Reshammiya doesn't give his lines a comic flavor; he delivers them monotonously.
There is no doubt that Badass Ravi Kumar is a bad film, though what's surprising is the amount of love and support offered to Reshammiya and the team (at least) online. Fan worship is so extreme that people have shut down anyone criticizing the film by repeating the same old cliché: "Not everything must be art," and "People should be allowed to enjoy an undemanding comedy (i.e., rubbish)." First things first, calling Badass Ravi Kumar a comedy is an insult to a genre that once used to glow in the hands of a Keaton and a Chaplin. Second, even as a parody, the movie fails terribly. The jokes are no good, and the spoofy nature is merely used as a cover to torture the audience with incompetent filmmaking. So why are some people busy defending the film? Maybe Bollywood has succeeded in lowering our expectations of Hindi films. Every week, a new Hindi film is released in the theaters, and it tarnishes our taste with its poor quality (some hero-centric action films, no matter what language they are in, are equally guilty). Many people - some "film critics" are also on this list - go as far as uploading a substandard hero entry shot on Twitter with fire emojis. Without writing "MASS" and using fire emojis, how will anyone grasp that the clip is meant to be "fiery," "massy," "dazzling?" It's possible that the person cherishing mediocrity must be aware that he is hyping up something empty. So a Badass Ravi Kumar must come as a relief for all those promoters of mediocrity who won't have to defend a lousy movie with box office figures and meaningless plaudits. They can openly enjoy a damp squib because the filmmakers are openly selling a colossal washout, that too with the tag of a parody. It's a perfect meeting of dead brain cells and amateurism, and given the conditions we live in, I won't be surprised if Badass Ravi Kumar emerges as a box office hit. No one wants to fight for or demand good things. Just give people something - anything - to distract them from seeking something of value, of significance. Badass Ravi Kumar is a perfect distraction - it completely kills your ability to think throughout its entire runtime.
Final Score- [1.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times