December 25, 2024: Baby John Review : Emotional Excess and Underwhelming Action
In Baby John, director Kalees tries hard to recapture the magic of Atlee’s 2016 Tamil film Theri, but what emerges is a bloated, over-the-top action thriller that overstays its welcome. Starring Varun Dhawan as John, a mild-mannered coffee shop owner who transforms into a deadly supercop, the film never quite hits the right emotional or action-packed notes.
The story, centered around John’s quest for revenge after his family is targeted by a corrupt minister, seems like a patchwork of clichés rather than a gripping narrative.
The film’s opening is striking – a young boy stands over his dead parents, victims of a construction accident caused by low-quality netting, while the negligent builder offers him chocolate. This stark, grisly moment seems to promise a deeper emotional connection, but the movie quickly derails into action-packed sequences that prioritize style over substance. Atlee’s signature social reform moments are littered throughout, but they come across as more theatrical than meaningful.
Varun Dhawan’s character, John, is supposed to be a sympathetic hero, but his transformation from a simple father to a relentless supercop feels unconvincing. The film’s extended flashbacks show John’s previous life as a Mumbai DCP (Satya Verma), but even his tragic backstory is undercut by melodrama and rushed exposition. Keerthy Suresh as his wife Meera and Jackie Shroff as the villain Nana deliver unremarkable performances, with Shroff’s portrayal of the over-the-top antagonist feeling more comical than menacing.
Baby John Review : Flawed, Over-the-Top, and Full of Clichés
Despite a strong stunt team behind the action sequences, Baby John fails to deliver any standout moments. A sequence involving Dhawan on horseback, charging at assassins on bikes, should have been a showstopper, but it’s lost in a sea of underwhelming action. The film’s action scenes are adequate but fail to impress in comparison to recent Bollywood thrillers.
While the film is a remake, the attempt to replicate Atlee’s grandiose style falls flat in the Hindi version. There are unintentional moments of humor, especially with the awkward translation of Tamil dialogues into Hindi, which detracts from the film’s seriousness. Despite these missteps, the unexpected cameo by Salman Khan as Agent Bhai Jaan offers a brief moment of fun, with the duo sharing lighthearted banter, although it feels more like a diversion than a significant plot development.
Baby John: Give it a miss
Ultimately, Baby John feels like a hastily assembled dish, overloaded with masala elements that don’t quite satisfy. Varun Dhawan delivers a likeable performance, but the film never allows him to fully shine. The action, the dialogue, and the emotional beats all seem forced, leaving the audience with little more than a sense of missed potential. Hindi cinema deserves more than just rehashed ideas from Tamil blockbusters. In its current form, Baby John feels more like an attempt at imitation than an original story worth telling.