Unlike most folks I know, I think Rohit Shetty is occasionally capable of inspired silliness. In Bol Bachchan, for example, he didn’t merely stop at the fact that he’s remaking Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Gol Maal, he has one character in his film watch a scene from Gol Maal on television and uncover the con being played on him; thereby establishing a probably unintentional but nonetheless amusing and witty connection between the two films. In the charmingly loony Chennai Express, his first outing with Shah Rukh Khan, through a reversal of gender roles and racial dynamic, he undermines the very stereotypes he was accused of propagating.
At least on paper, Dilwale does have an interesting germ of an idea. Here, Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol are cast as the elder individuals who oppose the union of the younger couple (played by Varun Dhawan and Kriti Sannon.) It’s an intriguing switch – a pair that, in two of their most iconic films together, fought familial authority in order to get together with each other, becomes the very familial authority in Dilwale – but Shetty does absolutely nothing with the idea. Shetty’s fascination with cars is also common knowledge, and I was hoping that it’s not for nothing that Khan’s and Dhawan’s characters work as automobile modifiers. Well, the film doesn’t make it matter one bit.
Which would have still been fine had he got the basic dramatic beats right, but none of that works either. The romantic track between Khan and Kajol almost reeks of arrogance, because for something which escalates into a grand melodrama of operatic proportions, the film doesn’t give us one reason to be invested in these characters except for the actors who’re playing the parts. Despite this being his home turf, I don’t ever recall seeing Khan this awkward in a song sequence, and his scenes with Kajol are oddly airless. (In one genuinely hilarious moment in the film when SRK’s and Kajol’s eyes meet for the first time, sparks don’t fly but pigeons do. Literally. See it to believe it.) The film uses comedy to take the romance bits forward, which varies from cruel wastage of actors who actually can do slapstick right (Sanjay Mishra, Johnny Lever) to plain atrocious actors (Boman Irani, Varun Sharma) mouthing embarrassingly unfunny lines.
In my note on Happy New Year, I complained that the film does nothing but pander to the fanboys unendingly. Dilwale goes a step further – it doesn’t try to appease the audience, it doesn’t even go for the lowest of ambitions, that of giving the fans exactly what they want. It just doesn’t care. For a film that goes about lecturing the audience about why the heart is somehow more virtuous than the brain, it’s ironic how cold and soulless it really is. Of course, the two can very much coexist. In Dilwale, though, neither of the two is anywhere to be found.
Operation Kino 