Shah Rukh Khan in 'Pathaan', which released in theatres on January 25, 2023. (Screen grab from trailer)
Siddharth Anand, director of Pathaan, channels Shah Rukh Khan’s electric on-screen charm like few directors have of late.
The hair is tousled, the eyes have lines around them that make-up can’t hide—in most scenes his face is buried under blood-splattered eyeballs and granular scars. Yet, the charm of a wise old, battered spy firmly in the mould of Bond, but with a sufficiently desi-sentimental heart and mongrel beginnings defying religion and geography—he is unapologetically a South Asian hero, not just an Indian one here—is instrumental in his crackerjack resurgence. Perhaps to seem safe enough to be admired for post-millennials and Gen-Z, he consumes green apples and fat-free yoghurt instead of alcohol and tobacco—the cheap neat whiskey is left for the woman.
Also read: In the season of SRK’s Pathaan, memories of Amitabh Bachchan and Nutan’s Saudagar
Those who have grown up on 1990s’ once-a-week Doordarshan TV serials will remember Fauji. It was one of Khan’s earliest lead roles, in which he played an Indian Army commando in training; it was set in a military school. If you take out the 2023 action staging—in a team of many action specialists, there is Craig Macrae who is one of the names in the Mad Max: Fury Road credit roll and Casey O’Neill who has worked with Tom Cruise, among other Hollywood actors—and the Hollywood-aspirant technology on glorious display, this could be the older and battle-scarred version of that old fauji who accidentally became a ladies’ man along the way.
The story, self-consciously silly and formulaic, by director Anand himself, with snappy, whistle-extracting dialogues by Abbas Tyrewala, moves back and forth across Delhi, Moscow, Afghanistan, Paris and Spain. Pathaan is a special agent for an Indian intelligence team led by Nandini (Dimple Kapadia). When a menacing former agent Jim (John Abraham) threatens to jeopardise India on the orders of an ISI head, Pathaan globe-trots his way with a former ISI agent Rubina (Deepika Padukone)—every bit a Hollywood action hero’s second fiddle, with the right measure of glam voltage and athletic physicality, but also a clever subversion of the Pakistani caricatures we are used to seeing in Bollywood—to get the enemy.
At 145 minutes, the narrative slumps at certain points, but the build-up to the thrilling climax has all the right tumults and editing tricks to tighten them.
In big-scale tech virtuosity, it’s one of the sharpest Bollywood films ever. The cinematography by Satchith Paulose is sweepingly slick. The sound design by Manas Choudhry and others is superbly complimentary to the film’s tempo. And the music by Vishal-Sheykhar and Ankit Balhara-Sanchit Balhara—though it brings nothing extra to the film’s purpose and mood—punctuates the zip and hustle of Pathaan’s testy feats effectively. The songs exist largely to accentuate the crackling chemistry between Khan and Padukone—the saffron bikini, by the way, is the most uninspired, blink-and-miss attire in the film.
All the masaledaar zing in Pathaan is bang-on, but that’s still not why the film is important in the spy genre (produced under Yashraj Films’ Spy Universe banner, it is going to be a money-spinner for the legacy production house sorely in need of a runaway hit). Unlike most patriots, especially patriots we’re getting used to seeing in Bollywood films in the past few years, here’s a brand of nationalism that doesn’t tom-tom the vile anti-Pakistan rhetoric. Pathaan is a Muslim spy whose patriotism rests on a multi-culturalism that drives largely on the humaneness and generosity of neighbours often seen as the dangerous other. It’s a brilliant course correction for a film industry that seems intent on making the inward-looking, mythical super-patriot the dominant male signature in our films.
The cheesiness of Pathaan the leading man has a soft nationalistic hue that harks back to the past, and the past can still demand fandom—and most likely box office gold—as Shah Rukh Khan proves in one of his loudest yet most charismatic iterations on screen.
A comically and cleverly executed, Bollywood-gazing cameo firmly establishes one of the industry’s most enduring leading men legacies. It is Khan’s obdurate statement: I and my kind are here to stay.
Checkout Budget Highlights 2023
