Can ‘Pathaan’ end Bollywood’s dry run?

Never has Bollywood been so desperate as it is now. It was an industry that always grabbed eyeballs by dominating the festival and holiday seasons.

But 2022 dealt a huge rap on its knuckles. Hindi film industry’s inability to produce organic mainstream films came to the fore last year. Bollywood has been mediocre for a while. Yet, it took the recent advent of OTT streaming combined with the consistent inflow of entertaining star-studded films from the south (‘Baahubali’ films, ‘RRR’, ‘KGF: Chapter 2’, ‘Kantara’) that convinced Hindi cinegoers to be intolerant to lacklustre content from Bollywood.

Aiming for a fresh start, Bollywood has pinned its hopes on Shah Rukh Khan-starrer ‘Pathaan’, which is set to release on the Republic Day eve. It’s a film expected to resurrect the wounded industry and also gift its leading star his lost crown.

Even as we wait for the spy action-thriller by Siddharth Anand, the media hype around it has been ridiculously over-the-top with clickbait headlines galore. An online portal has titled a piece ‘Pathaan’ advance bookings cross ‘KGF: Chapter 2’ lifetime collections’. Click the link and you realise it’s only in Germany. What’s the big deal? Shah Rukh’s overseas popularity isn’t a new phenomenon.

There is more such bizarre news about the film. A fan, claiming he can’t afford a ticket to the film, has said in a video that if he fails to watch ‘Pathaan’ on the first day, he is going to kill himself. What’s worse? An astrologer has tried to decipher why the makers decided to release it on Wednesday and not on the Republic Day. Don’t bother wondering about the answer. It’s not worth it.

Yash Raj Films, the film’s producers, have begun the promotion gimmicks by saying the film is part of the banner’s ‘Spy Universe’. ‘Pathaan’ will be the first film to have characters from Salman Khan’s ‘Tiger’ franchise and the Hrithik Roshan-Tiger Shroff starrer ‘War’. The films in the universe have protagonists playing exiled RAW agents who later, expectedly, save the country from terrorist groups.

It’s interesting how the likes of Rohit Shetty (Cop Universe) and Yash Raj Films have woken up to the concept immediately after Lokesh Kanagaraj sensationalised it in India with his star-studded blockbuster ‘Vikram’. The LCU, Lokesh Cinematic Universe, has given a promising sign of exciting crossovers unlike its Hindi counterparts.

The unfortunate and notorious trend of boycott campaigns against Hindi films on social media won’t spare ‘Pathaan’, which is still recovering from the political controversy over its song ‘Besharam rang’. Narendra Modi’s recent statement should come as a relief for the makers. The prime minister has told BJP members “to refrain from making unnecessary remarks on irrelevant issues like movies”.

Will the party members, some of whom have threatened to stop the film’s screening on January 25, pay heed to their leader’s warning? Only time will tell. That apart the film has faced the brunt of the Indian censor board, which is always slammed for being intolerant and narrow-minded. It has asked the makers to revise and change scenes that dent the country’s “glorious culture”.

Shah Rukh is doing his bit to increase the hype around the film by constantly interacting with fans and responding to southern stars in their local language. Some saw the gesture as friendly banter while some felt the star was going on an overdrive.

To his credit, Shah Rukh is enduring a rough patch, sure, but he hasn’t fallen without fighting. Since 2015, he has consciously chosen the experimental path, deciding to break away from his romantic star image. In ‘Fan’ (2016), he reminded people of his famous anti-hero portrayals of ‘Baazigar’ and ‘Darr’ in 1993. He was a charming and witty psychiatrist to Alia Bhatt in Gauri Shinde’s ‘Dear Zindagi’ (2016). In ‘Zero’, he played a dwarf finding it hard to find a bride before falling in love with a scientist (Anushka Sharma) with cerebral palsy.

These films had a promising premise but they turned out to be middling affairs. The same audiences who were critical of them were the ones who made routine yet fairly entertaining Shah Rukh films such as ‘Chennai Express’ (2013), ‘Happy New Year’ (2014), and ‘Dilwale’ (2015) blockbusters. It shows how, in a decade, the taste and mindset of movie buffs have changed, perhaps for the better.

Shah Rukh said ‘Pathaan’ has fulfilled his three-decade dream of being an action hero. He had come close to achieving it in ‘Baadshah’ (1999), ‘Don 2’ (2011) and ‘Raees’ (2017). They weren’t actioners but Shah Rukh was immensely watchable as the intense and wicked protagonist in these films.

The star is set to flaunt his chiseled body and 8-pack abs. In Deepika Padukone and John Abraham, the film’s cast is potent. Now, it all depends on the content, which one hopes goes beyond the easy trope of patriotism. And hopefully, the action is far from poor imitation of Hollywood hits.