So you all know what an FRS is right? Right?
Welcome to the YRF Spy Universe – which only means that YRF will make the same film with different heroes and tease you with winks, cameos and post credit sequence madness for the next 25 years.
Time for you to start an SIP under YRF Spy Universe and keep investing 100 rs every month considering inflation and all that.
<Giving platform for long faced Bollywood fanboy -LFBF, because we encourage diverse opinions, but we don’t think you can follow Bollywood and have deep opinions, but nevertheless or as they say Koi Baat Nahi>
LFBF: Yeh review bhais, for Marvel movies you spent hazaar and hazaar rupaiyya, but if Bollywood does you will make fun na?
Koi Baat Nahi, but Bollywood is back.
-101: For everyone who uses any variation of Bollywood is back, SRk is back, once a king always a king, king for a reason, king who unified the earth – wait, that was King Solomon right? SRK is King Solomon?
No viewer will get even one paisa if Bollywood is back or not back, this is like buying one Mango and telling the whole Salem Mango Industry is back!
But Mangoes are good, they mostly taste well, they are also called the King of fruits..
LFBF: Abbey, only SRK is King.
Isn’t he a Pathaan?
Nevermind, the point is that he is back.
121: Not surprising for a Bollywood film, Pathaan begins in Islamabad.
In fact it begins in an oncologist’s office in Islamabad where a General is getting his diagnosis.
How many years does he have to live, he asks.
Three, the doctor says.
Just when you thought that this is going to be a touching portrayal of a Pakistani General coming to terms with his own morality, the TV blares out that Article 370 has been revoked.
Yes Oncologist in Islamabad take their news seriously and have 24*7 always on, even while consulting.
56: That brings us to the introduction of the main baddie of Pathaan who is simply named Jim, so that you know that absolutely no writing went into his creation.
Jim is just John Abraham. His smile is the same as in a Garnier Men advertisement.
<FRS not sponsored by Garnier Men>
This by itself is not bad, in fact it is one the saving graces of the film – that the film lets John Abraham be himself.
We can even imply that for the moments he is away in this movie, we are probably thinking Jim … we mean John would be working out and preparing for his attack (or working for Garnier Men)
Also how did he escape from Somali pirates to start OutfitX? Did captain Philips save him? Is Captain Philips part of the YRFSU?
-20: Low effort in naming.
the shadow terrorist outfit employed by the said Pakistani General is called…Outfit X
-97: movie asks to us to take it seriously when the counter terrorist outfit is name JOCR (Joker oh so so funny)
JOCR is Joint Operations and Covert Research.
Even basic nomenclature enthusiasts would know that it sounds right when it is called Covert Research and Joint Operations (CRJO) and anyone who has seen the film knows that there is nothing covert about their operations.
Joint…let’s come to that in a bit.
Brace for a small diversion on Japanese philosophy
Someone said, speaking at the Cancer Institute in 2013
“This place offers hope, and hope brings about healing. When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage, by filling the cracks with gold. They believe that, when something has suffered damage, and has a history, it becomes more beautiful. This indeed is true, for the millions of cancer survivors, who have come out stronger, and more beautiful than before.”
This is indeed Kintsugi , a beautiful philosophy of looking at breakage in an object as part of the life of the object itself and a good allegory for organization which finds a place for agents who have been put out to pasture.
And when Pathaan was explaining Kintsugi to his boss, the only thing I could think of was this quote.
If you know who this someone is, let us know in the comments below.
#EngagementTactics
-37: Movie takes a good allegory and goes nowhere with it.
This was supposed to be a film about broken agents finding their place and we barely know anything about Pathaan’s colleague, except that one guy is called Rishi and another guy is called Raza and a girl once or twice uses the phrase “dark web”
+80: Darkweb as the source of all intelligence info, this is going to be a recurring theme.
As for JOCR, we don’t know what they exactly do and how they facilitate joint operations.
For most part JOCR seems like a travel desk for Pathaan to go from one country to another and Dimple Kapadia maam seems likely to join the long list of film intelligence heads who could not contain her over enthusiastic agents.
-300: Intelligence Failure MAX (iMAX)
Middle Eastern countries are not going to like this film as a major attack on their country happens in broad daylight and there is absolutely no one there to stop it or take action later.
+200: Villain will explain his entire purpose, mission statement, how he aims to achieve it and all specifics to hero, because of course people forgot how to write character motivation anymore
But this is positive because , audience is now clear what is going to happen for the next 2 hours or so
FacePalm to folks who said that playing Ae Watan as Jim’s signature whistle is part of character development.
-96: Time saved in naming key aspects and characters in the film could have been used in creating better graphics.
At least some of Pathaan would have been admissible if the graphics had been more relatable to a large section of the audience.
Here it was relatable to 8 bit video game players who are of course a small section of any audience
-120: Movie thinks we will take it seriously because it has helicopters.
Whenever the movie unit feels that there is a dip in viewer interest, they introduce a helicopter.
In the dubai sequence they introduce two, that should tell you a lot about that sequence.
For a moment, we thought that they would bring a helicopter into the theater hall, considering Pathaan loves flying one in enclosed spaces.
+85: Jim treats helicopters like how Kamal treats vellai the cow in Singaravelan
Yes, oddly for a film named Pathaan, the most registered character is Jim- it is in no way a well written character but by the end of the movie we know nothing about Pathaan, don’t know his skills, his pain, his fear, his signature moves- maybe that is what they will explore in the universe.
-701: Pussyfooting screenwriting: I kind of get what the writers are going for, something like Star Trek: Into Darkness or Skyfall or even SRK’s own Main Hoon Na
Where the antagonist is created because of the attitude of the state implying that the all is not well with the state and its machinery- but does not beyond that.
Much like how the allegory to Japanese Kintsugi is introduced, this is introduced and not at all taken forward.
Which made feel like if you do want to say something, say it openly and I agree saying that takes real courage but at least more admirable than writing 20 rupees dialogues like ‘Give your Mother India my last goodbye’ etc
Also why is Jim’s signature BGM an old creaking door? (It’s even in the trailer)
But we will give them some leeway as this being a commercial filmmakers have to appeal to everyone and hence ultimately no one, not even ISI agents.
-27: ISI Agents are not going to like this movie.
-33.33: Empowered spy heroine template
The ChatGPT inspired writing of Pathaan comes out more clearly in the way how the character of Rubina Mohsin is written.
Atleast she gets a good name- Rubina Mohsin.
First we are of course introduced to the glamor element where she has to entice our hero into doing things and then as an afterthought, the action.
When the final battle becomes clearly Jim vs Pathaan (what else?) , Rubina is given a gatling gun type sequence.
It’s so lazy that even Jim makes fun of the repetitive RAW hero falling for the ISI heroine trope within the Yash Raj Spy Universe.
So much for self-awareness.
+97: Speaking of self awareness, we can see that the Yash Raj Spy Universe has already taken to the quippyness of the MCU, in fact the closest character that Pathaan resembles is Robert Downey Jr’s portrayal of Iron Man (there is also a scene with the touch screen etc)
Which like in MCU was refreshing when they did it but they themselves effectively killed it later down the line.
Good luck Yash Raj.
-102: Expected twist during Interval is expected
Pathaan literally suspect that one character who just moments before sang a song which says like “world has not seen my true colors”
Bhai, how is he employed in intelligence?
-78: The intelligence community is not going to like this movie
For a movie about spies, espionage and missions there is very little thinking and more throwing of terms like Raktabeej.
Basically the most interesting stuff are the most boring in Pathaan and they think that slow motion action with shotgun sequence will make us believe it is otherwise.
-58: Neat segue into action
As expected there is an ice planet fight, there is cityscape fight, there is a jetpack vs jet pack fight – but it is not audacious or inventive.
Some even don’t register and are made with the “We’ll do everything that South ka films do” attitude.
But South ka films have marinated in this genre for decades and what they do come from a place of love.
They also swing for the fences, involve inventive action sequences and tell an epic story.
There is no shame in being inspired by other films (previously mentioned) , it is not even wrong to use the same devices, twists and turns – but what differentiates one film from its derived class is what it adds new to the genre and to the movies it freely borrows from.
LFBF: All that is fine, but Pathaan is 700 crores + bhai! Not even counting the number of times people will come to theaters to see THAT cameo- we have done what South Ka movies have done and SRK will reach 1000 crores.
Bolly is back!
That’s true, slightly quoting the film
don’t ask what an SRK movie can do to you, ask what you can do to make an SRK movie reach 1000 crores?
Jai Hind
Vanakkam
Team FRS
The Lowly Laureate 