‘Baby John’ (2024) Movie Review - Kalees, Varun Dhawan Make An Exhausting Action Thriller

Two interesting things happened during the promotion of Baby John. First, the left-wing turned sour after listening to Varun Dhawan's compliments for Amit Shah, the Minister of Home Affairs. Second, many people referred to Baby John as an Atlee production. To the people on the Left, I would just say that you don't need to be so contemptuous towards Dhawan. He's just trying to save his film because it's exceptionally terrible (negative PR can still be an opportunity for promotion). The more noise a movie makes, the more hollow it is from within. Second, this is a Kalees film, not an Atlee film. It's a remake of Atlee's Theri, which I have not seen, but from my experience of watching Jawan, Baby John does look like an Atlee movie. Unsurprisingly, then, throughout the 2-hour and 40-minute runtime, I only wanted to leave the movie theater. This is the kind of urge I also got during my Jawan screening. I can reiterate this line from my review of that Shah Rukh snoozefest: "I would have left the theater during the interval if I had not had a professional interest in seeing the film." The exit signs rarely look so inviting, so appealing.

Like Jawan, Baby John reveals its problems from the beginning - it's technically incompetent. Here's what happens during the first few minutes: Girls are smuggled to some location. A police officer comes to rescue them. The police officer is blackmailed (the goons have his daughter). The man in the khaki uniform cries while the bad guy dances. All these actions unfold so swiftly they become weightless. Before you can grasp the urgency of the situation, the movie cuts away to Kerala to show us the life of a bearded Varun Dhawan, the titular character. Like Jawan's Atlee, Kalees is merely interested in "high moments." He, like a kid in a candy store, leaps from one emotion to another emotion without caring about tonal consistencies or coherence. A love song can lead to a fight sequence. A comedy scene can give rise to a weepy moment. A one-word answer question can motivate someone to give lengthy speeches. Perhaps someone must have told Kalees that his film should be unpredictable without explaining to him the terms on which it should be unpredictable. The only thing he has learned from Atlee - and Jawan's success - is that background music shouldn't be in the background. It should be so loud that it can dictate what the audience should feel during a particular moment. Hell, nobody cares if some dialogues are sacrificed at the altar of noise pollution.

What else? Oh yes, Jawan has also taught Kalees - or maybe this is something Atlee could have told the director - that audiences love social commentary and socially relevant pictures. They get orgasms if you tell them something as simple and shallow as rich people are corrupt. Jawan told us that - gasp - politicians are bad and can quickly fix the country with their power. Who knew our netas had so much influence? And so, we have Baby John that says - more gasps - rapists are depraved. What's more, some of them even enter the political system. Will the critics who came out of Jawan feeling they have touched heaven shower exuberant praises on this stupid Kalees vehicle? Will they again digest shallow comments as "politically charged" statements? Or does this blindness exist only when Shah Rukh Khan is in front of them? If that's the case, then Kalees should have put this Khan in that cameo appearance.

I am trying to remember the last time I watched a "well-intentioned" film that made me sick to my stomach. Take this scene from Baby John, for instance. A girl who is injured and sexually assaulted runs towards her parents. DCP Satya Verma (Dhawan) notices the girl and runs towards her. But fire proves to be faster than the police officer, so she meets her maker. It's a disturbing scene that becomes a cheap emotional trigger in Kalees' hands. The soundscape starts a crying competition with the characters. I don't know who emerged as victorious because I wanted to puke on the screen - I was too nauseous. Satya beats some goons with a stick when they fail to answer some GK questions. Meaning: It's the uneducated who walk on the path of gangsterism. Well, if you closely observe your surroundings, you will also find well-educated criminals. Don't tell Kalees, though. He wants things to be simple-minded. Like Pushpa 2, Baby John is a celebration of male hormones that also pays lip service to women's strength. Meera, played by Keerthy Suresh, is a doctor, but her profession doesn't matter. When Satya asks Meera about her dreams, her ambitions, she says she wants a small house, a dog, and a husband who can, out of 24, give 20 hours to her (I was immensely relieved when Jackie Shroff's character interrupted this conversation). During a song sequence, she indicates she wants ten children. In other words, both Pushpa 2 and Baby John have the same notion: A perfect woman has "homely ambitions." She will never think or talk about her career.

It makes perfect sense then that Kalees dedicates Baby John to "all the fathers." Women, for him, are nothing more than sexual assault victims - a trend that has become common in many male-led action vehicles. Wamiqa Gabbi has many training flashbacks and one action sequence that ends with a whimper. She is present as a shield to dodge criticisms. Rajpal Yadav (terribly wasted) declares that comedy is a serious business, probably for people who didn't watch Apurva. Is he tired of comedy? Does he want to be a "serious actor?" Then, there is Zara Zyanna to increase the cuteness factor. This cuteness is another trigger that Kalees presses for "Aww" reactions. Baby John's potential is seen in glimpses during scenes like the one where a man comes running out of a burning bush. Even the theme music is quite rousing and infectious. Kalees, however, overuses this music and undermines the film's potential through emotionally vulgar scenes and numerous as well as monotonous "whistle at hero" scenes that are all mentally exhausting. The director places minor twists here and there, like when Meera wakes up and rescues her daughter, but these "twists" turn out to be insignificant. And what about Khushi's (Zyanna) relationship with water? A car splashes water on her. She gets drenched in the rain a few minutes later. A villain tries to drown her in a bathtub. During the climax, water threatens to separate Khushi from her father. What connection can you establish between the liquid and the character? Maybe it's a sign. Given the remarkable ineptitude of Baby John, I think it's better to immerse yourself in cold water during this winter instead of going to the movie theater for this third-rate hogwash. Hey, third-rate hogwash is what I also called Jawan! This is truly an Atlee-Kalees collaboration.

Final Score- [1.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times