Judwaa 2 (2017) Review!!!

Synopsis – A remake of Judwaa (1997)

My Take – Let me be honest, I do occasionally enjoy slapstick humor, in fact I prefer watching them on a stressful pre-weekend evening just to loosen myself a bit, but hey I know the difference when I say slapstick and not clumsy. As a kid growing up in the 90s, David Dhawan films happened to be my resort to guilty pleasures, mainly as they came at a time when Indian cinema in general was aimed at entertaining the audience unabashedly i.e. cinema that cannot and should not be taken seriously. His films were all unapologetically silly and blithely sexist, saved by the motor mouth charm of Govinda and sometimes by the goofiness of Salman Khan, back when he had comic timing, sure, they were popular, but hey that was the ‘90s right, when our directors still thought of lisping or forced kissing as hilarious & now exactly twenty years later, director David Dhawan and producer Sajid Nadiadwala have teamed up to remake their much-loved 1997 comedy Judwa, starring Salman Khan, Karisma Kapoor and Ramba in the leads. It’s quite obvious, since Judwaa was an unapologetically slapstick comedy of errors, and the goal of this new release is to cash in on the recall value of that brand, it could have been safely assumed without visiting a theatre that director David Dhawan would not go all cerebral on us with the remake/sequel. And as expected, this is shoddy filmmaking at its finest, but, really, who’s surprised? It’s not like the first one was an all-time classic or even among director Dhawan’s finest works. The 1997 film was a fun film for its time and a major commercial success too – all credit to lead actor Salman Khan who just took it to a different level with his star power, and here his son, Varun Dhawan in the lead was expected to repeat the act and is thankfully solely responsible for maintaining the film’s entertainment quotient. Yet, I am confused about why would the makers term this one a sequel, especially when they have used exactly the same premise, characters and situations from the original, and just moved the location from India to London.

The story follows Raja and Prem (Varun Dhawan), conjoined twins whose surgical separation at birth results in a unique biological phenomenon seen in one in eight million cases, i.e. when they are in geographically nearby locations, each experiences the sensations the other is going through and unwittingly clones the other’s actions. Years ago, their businessman father, Malhotra (Sachin Khedekar) met Charles (Zakir Hussain) onboard a flight & befriend each other but their friendship is short lived as Malhotra ends up helping the cops nab Charles, a career criminal, herby inviting his ire in return. In a fit to escape, Charles nabs one of the new born twins and runs. Despite being caught, Charles stages an explosion, hereby forcing the newly appointed parents to think that they have lost one of their sons. However, the infant survives, and grows up on the streets of Mumbai as a goon aptly named Raja, who only has best friend Nandu (Rajpal Yadav) in the name of family, while, the other twin, living with his parents in London, turns out to be a shy, guitar strumming, piano playing coward aptly named Prem. However, an inadvertent incident in Mumbai, where Raja locks horns with Alex (Vivan Bhatena) and ends up fatally injuring him, forces him & Nandu to leave the country and flee to London, where he becomes a pizza delivery boy and falls for the feisty Alishka (Jacqueline Fernandez), while Prem joins a music school and falls for a fellow student Samara (Taapsee Pannu). The confusion caused by their respective lovers and respective enemies being in the same area leads to a chain of mix-ups and mess-ups until the two twins end up finally meeting each other, while also having to deal with the return of Charles. Given that this is the premise, obviously this film, like the original, is not an intellectual enterprise, fair enough, we all need to occasionally let our hair down with a dose of old-fashioned stupidity, and large parts of the film offer silly, mindless laughs. But, if you discount the costumes and the slick production design and camerawork, the film offers absolutely no novelty. The story and treatment are still stuck in the 1990s, as the screenplay doesn’t allow itself to venture too far away from the original, as though worried it won’t find its way back. Even two of Anu Malik’s foot-tapping hits from the original, Aati Hai Kya Nau Se Baarah and Oonchi Hai Building have been remixed for the new version. Even so, the film keeps you entertained as Sajid-Farhad (Housefull series), master writers in the silly dialogue department; come up with numerous chuckle-worthy gags. I won’t be surprised if many of the punch lines survive long after the film has disappeared from the theatres. They definitely know who the audience is and makes several references to pop culture with gags and jokes making references to Despacito, Champion song, Baahubali, Shah Rukh Khan’s films and even Varun’s own massively growing fan base. I usually give films with dialogue by Sajid-Farhad a wide acceptable nod, unfortunately their work here is non appealing when you compare it to some of the sparkling comic writing we’ve seen this year, in the form of Bareilly Ki Barfi, Shubh Mangal Saavdhan and Mubarakan, films that have the courtesy to not treat the viewer like a child. Even if you haven’t seen the original but are someone who is not easily impressed with juvenile humor, chances are that you will not find this one worth your time and money. There is humor which is so silly that it’s funny and then there is humor which is so dumbed down that it will leave you exasperated. Unfortunately, it’s the latter with this remake.

The gags used in the film to tickle audiences’ funny bone are clichéd and forced. An attempt is made to make the film relevant to 2017, but that hardly proves a plus for the story that still has its heart in the 90s. From a personal point of view, I do believe that even silliness must evolve, and this would have been a better film if the screenplay by Yunus Sajawal and dialogues from Sajid-Farhad had, while retaining the same concept, moved beyond some of the stereotypes and insensitivity that once dominated Bollywood and occasionally lingers in projects such as this. Here, they have milked the same joke over and over again, like Prem and Raja mirror each other’s actions – so when one is kissing, so is the other; when one lands a blow, so does the other. This leads to many slapstick moments and is funny just once, after which it gets repetitive. For the most part the film is harmless, except when it ventures occasionally again into crude clichés revolving around Dhawan’s assumption that the mere sight of black people should be a cause of laughter, and the abominable terms in which a middle-aged woman – Samara’s mother – is repeatedly described as a worn out automobile. Plus, it’s no longer funny to see the hero spank the heroine or kiss her forcibly. It’s distasteful to watch a mother pushing her daughter to be with a guy because he’s rich and it’s ridiculous to make jokes on a speech-impaired man. I am not getting all high heels here and saying a speech defect may not lead to amusing situations, but that this team lacks the finesse that, say, Vishal Bhardwaj‘s Kaminey marvelously employed by balancing humor with sensitivity. The least David Dhawan as a director could’ve done was to eliminate the tackiness, which was evidently absent from the previous film the father son duo collaborated on (2014s Main Tera Hero). A remake is genuinely redundant unless the director has a fresh perspective (like Agneepath and Don), but here it seems director David Dhawan has rehashed one of his most popular works for the sheer need to mint money, as the film is practically a scene by scene copy of the original, including the deep desire in the leading man to shed his shirt at the drop of a hat & to make good looking actresses seem like bimbos. With the recent Mubarakan, director Anees Bazmee showed us how it is possible to hark back to the comedies of an era gone by, even dip into stereotypes and trite comedic devices – boisterous Punjabis, twins separated at birth – without resorting to those that should have been retired in the Stone Age. This film skates on thin ice on occasion, but for the most part passes muster without being earth-shatteringly good anywhere. Still, the question arises: why was this film made at all? Of course, the film is intended for and belongs to Varun Dhawan. He clearly enjoys what he is doing and uses the opportunity to showcase his acting talent by playing two characters with vastly different backgrounds and demeanors in the same film and sometimes in the same frame, display his action skills in a bunch of fight scenes, and dance. Taapsee Pannu who had created such a buzz recently with the kind of films she chose, like Pink and Naam Shabana, shows here that she is suited to the singing-dancing-swimsuit-wearing-glamour-doll routine too, something which has made her a star down in the South film industry. Jacqueline Fernandez, with her gorgeousness and spunk, will make you realize how she’s the perfect choice for Karisma Kapoor‘s role. Despite a few good moments, the supporting cast comprising of Rajpal Yadav, Sachin Khedekar, Upasna Singh, Manoj Joshi, Pavan Malhotra, Zakir Hussain, Ali Asgar, Vivan Bhatena and Anupam Kher (the only actor appearing in both films but in different roles) are wasted. Salman Khan’s cameo is also poorly executed. On the whole, ‘Judwaa 2’ is cringe worthy cinema at its best, which despite Varun Dhawan’s spectacular act is a letdown due to its uninteresting old fashioned humor.