Bhaiyya Ji banks on Manoj Bajpayee's rooted stardom, some slick action, and great background score, but everything else is a royal mess
Director: Apoorv Singh Karki
Cast: Manoj Bajpayee, Zoya Hussain, Suvinder Vicky Pal, Jatin Goswami
Where to watch: Theatres
Rating: 2.5 stars
Right from its trailer, Bhaiyya Ji screamed mass. The tone, camera angles, background score, and presentation all looked heavily inspired by the mass action thrillers from Tamil and Telugu cinema. Director Apoorv Singh Karki admitted that it was a tribute to the style of cinema he has loved since he was a kid. But the end result looks more parody than tribute, because the low-budget tries hard to punch above its weight but is bogged down by some pedestrian writing, amateurish camera work and editing, and shoddy performances. Even Manoj Bajpayee, delivering another strong performance, isn’t enough to save this mess.
Bhaiyya Ji has a wafer thin plot, the kind we have seen so many times in Hindi and Telugu cinema that it really doesn’t matter. The titular strongman (Manoj Bajpayee) is a reformed former baahubali from Bihar whose younger brother is murdered by the son of a political strongman in Delhi. To avenge his brother’s death, Bhaiyya Ji must renounce the promise he gave his dead father and pick up his weapon of choice – a spade. What follows is some relentless action and lots of bad guys doing stupid things.
I honestly don’t have complaints with Bhaiyya Ji’s plot (or the absence of one). It is to be expected from a mass film. I do not go into the theatre expecting a Breaking Bad-level character growth here. But I do mind is how the film does not rely on even making the characters different or distinguishable from the stereotypes. Everyone is playing a type and they are not doing it very well. That means that the characters are reduced to caricatures. In that, the good actors manage to coast through with panache while others are left looking quite silly. An accomplished actor like Suvinder Vicky being reduced to a poor man’s Jagapathi Babu is a great disservice to both him and the audience.
A lot does work for Bhaiyya Ji, surprisingly. The background score is the biggest winner, with the BGM given to Bajpayee’s elevation particularly managing to do its job. It’s hair-raising and rousing and will elicit quite a few taalis and seetis in single-screen theatres. The other thing that works for the film is Manoj Bajpayee. Not once does the actor feel out of place as an action hero. He is in Rajinikanth and Balakrishna territory here, playing an ageing but powerful hero. And the actor shows just why he is the most talented actor of his generation. When he kicks, punches, and shoots bad guys with ease and style, one does wonder what might have been had he been given this opportunity at 35 instead of 55. The dialogue is another winner, balancing on the right side of humour and cringe. It is outrageous, but just enough to be funny and fun.
But all this is let down by the amateurish manner in which the film has been constructed. I want to applaud Bajpayee, Karki, and co-producer Vinod Bhanushali for attempting an action film of this scale on a budget as tiny. But what that has done is reduce the technical finesse of the film. The editing is very choppy with the narrative jumping all too frequently. Some of the grander scenes lack not just the suspension of disbelief but also the polishing that movies in this genre have come to imbibe. Bhaiyya Ji would have been just fine 15 years ago, but having watched what HanuMan and Kantara can do on a limited budget, this is a letdown.
Bhaiyya Ji is an attempt to bring the grammar of south mass to the Hindi heartland. It is an ironic role reversal because this mass cinema has its roots in the Hindi masala films of the 70s, namely Don, Deewar, and Coolie. And now as storytelling comes a full circle, Bollywood finds itself inspired by the style and sass of Tamil and Telugu films. But there are no marks for attempts in the cine world. Execution is what matters. And there, Bhaiyya Ji has miles to go. Maybe it can be a lesson for future filmmakers, for there is a lot right here too. But if people can improve on where it went wrong, Hindi cinema can truly own the desi action space again.
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