Kick: Bhaigiri with a dash of politics

Kick is a flatteringly honest remake of a 2009 Telugu film of the same name by director Surender Reddy. But its entertainment quotient is its own.

Kick, the directorial debut of producer Sajid Nadiadwala, is lavish and glamorous with Ayananka Bose’s soaring cinematography, Julius Packiam’s ecstatic background score, some stunning stunts and several wow moments, not all of them, thankfully, involving Salman Khan.

Kick is one of Salman Khan’s better films. Its production quality is impressive and it has, lo and behold, a story, howsoever silly and “inspired” it may be from the Telugu film. It’s not Dabangg, it’s more Dhoom 3, but unlike Aamir’s Khan’s oh- so- serious demeanour that contaminated Dhoom 3, Kick makes light of itself and often makes us laugh.

The story of Kick is powered by, first, Devi Lal Singh ( Salman Khan), and then Devil ( also Salman Khan).

First half of the film comes to us as flashback. Dr Shaina Mehra ( Jacqueline Fernandes), a psychiatrist in Warsaw, Poland, who is unable to get over her former boyfriend, Devi Lal, is narrating the story of their courtship and break- up to Himanshu Tyagi ( Randeep Hooda), a cop from India who has just arrived in Warsaw. After Shaina is done, Himanshu, who has many medals but only one daag on his vardi, tells her about Devil, the elusive chor he’s come chasing.

Shaina’s daddy, India’s high commissioner to Poland ( Saurabh Shukla), is hoping these two will marry.

Also arriving in Poland is Shiv ( Nawazuddin Siddiqui), who is the link between Devi Lal and Devil. Shiv, the home minister’s bhanja, runs a charitable hospital back in India, though he’s not too charitable with his patience or money.

Devil is after Shiv, Himanshu is after Devil, Shaina wants to cure Devi Lal of his retrograde amnesia. Telling anything more would be spoiling it. Suffice to say that Devil’s reasoning for going after Shiv is nebulous, but I didn’t care. Sau khoon maaf for giving us a face- off between Salman Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui, howsoever brief.

Despite its intermittent dips, Kick is a thoroughly enjoyable film, especially the second half where all the real chasing and fighting is concentrated. After the interval, Kick is mostly a pacy, all- male, action- packed affair that ends with a wink and a smile, Salman- bhai style.

Boys and girls who queue up to watch Salman Khan’s films do so not because they want to see him melt away into a character. No. They want to see him own the character, establish his supremacy over any character that’s given to him.

That’s why Devi Lal Singh and Devil are a mix of Salman Khan’s personality and persona. That the two guilefully mirror each other is a feat Salman fans pay good money to watch and enjoy again and again.

Devi Lal and Devil stand on the same two stilts: Left Stilt is the myth of the on- screen Salman Khan — the irresistibly charming and adorable mayhem machine; Right Stilt is Salman Khan ofscreen. End result is a sweet, dutiful son to mommy and daddy, but a reluctant fiancee. A man who will get drunk with his daddy, but won’t settle down with a girl, or in a job. What he does, he does only if it gives him a kick.

He adores innocent children, is a world- class scientist, but is also a man’s man. Alpha. Physical. One with a shatir dimag. Is emotional, but also ruthless. He’ll save children, but won’t spare anyone who tries to harm them. He’s a protector of the vulnerable. He drills, quite literally, sense into men who won’t stand up to protect women. He’s a cute, chulbula guy till you angry him. Then he turns into an furious messiah, guarding the good, butchering the bad.

This is more or less the kind of character we’ve seen a lot. What is new and interesting is that Salman’s character here says delightfully political things. He disses fasting leaders of AAP and takes a moment to say that speaking Hindi doesn’t give him a kick, whereas speaking Telugu, Tamil... does. The fact that the entire film is in Hindi is irrelevant. Salman Khan has spoken and that’s important.

Most of Salman’s films show babaji- ka- thullu to his critics who crave something little less ludicrous. This time around Salman has acknowledged their existence and has preempted their whinging by saying, “Mere bare mein zyada mat sochna. Mein dil mein aata hoon, samajh mein nahin.”

It’s true.

Chetan Bhagat has given several interviews talking about how stressed he was while writing Kick’s screenplay which, incidentally, he was writing with three others — Rajat Arora, Keith Gomes and Sajid Nadiadwala. Well, the film’s story is what it was in 2009, as are the plot’s twists and turns. There’s some new stuffing, of course, and the setting is entirely new — Kick is set in the Narcissistic World of Salman Khan. But clever writing and Nadiadwala’s direction give us an entertaining film that has slick, worldclass stunts laced with laughout- loud desi humour. Salman Khan pulls it all off easily.

Embedded in the film’s screenplay and its crisp, funny dialogue by Rajat Arora are love messages to Salman Khan fans, including a reference to Chulbul Pandey as if he were a real person. Also, Salman’s character doesn’t deign to say who he is. All those around him are handed compliments to shower on him.

But one thing must be said about Salman Khan — he’s not insecure on- screen. He always picks villains his size, sometimes even bigger. He doesn’t bring in lesser men to bounce off his held- out fist or flexed foot. He picks worthy men. And here he’s got two — Randeep Hooda and Nawazuddin Siddiqui. Of course neither is playing a character bigger than Salman’s. They dutifully begin in awe of him and sign off expressing more awe. They do, however, get enough footage and lines to leave their mark, to establish that Salman is up against real creepos, not thickos.

This is not something we see, for example, in Akshay Kumar films. So insecure is Mr Kumar that he’s now brought in a dog to be his opponent.

It was a delight to watch Nawazuddin who plays Shiv based on the template left by Heath Ledger for all villains to imitate and improvise upon. He does justice to the Joker. Randeep Hooda stayed in awe of the Devil.

Salman and Jacqueline’s chemistry is interesting but is not exploited fully. Miss Fernandes is lovely, but a mediocre actor. But man, can she move! Nargis Fakhri’s item number dew hoots and whistles, but everybody sat gobsmacked staring at Miss Fernandes gyrate. Wow!

Young fans of Salman Khan probably don’t know of Divya Bharati, a petite, dancing tornado that hit Bollywood in 1992 and died, 14 films later, in 1993. She had a secret marriage with Sajid Nadiadwala and soon after fell to her death from her fifth- storey apartment in Versova, Mumbai. Nadiadwala was one of the suspects, though the case was closed for lack of evidence.

In his first film as director, Nadiadwala pays homage to her by making Salman sing and dance to Saat Samundar Paar… Divya’s first Bollywood number in Vishwatma. Watching it made me both uneasy and emotional.