Somewhere in secound half of the Ali Abbas Zafer film Randeep Hooda, who plays the coach of wrestler Sultan(salman Khan) says of him, "Jat hai na asli(Isnt’ he a true blue jat)". I was immensely amused by the unwitting irony embedded in the line. That a real off-screen jat should be giving browine points to an eminently faux on-screen one sporting a laboured, indistinct Haryanvi accent that flits in and out of his mouth at its own sweet will and discretion. Not that my observation matters. Even the Haryanvis amongst his die-hard fans will cross swords with me for making that disapproving comment. But then Sultan(or for that matter any other bhai film) has to be seen as independently of his crazy fans and their riotous reactions at Galaxy as of his infamous "rape" remarks. so let me stick my neck out and say that the Haryana in the film are cringingly irritating. As is the accented English of the in-film Aaj Tak reporter(the willing suspension of disbelief be damned). Just a month back there was the much reviled Laal Rang, starring Hooda that got the rough and rustic lingo and earthy humour spot on. Here the accent itself becomes joke. A juvenile, inane one at that. Saying "yo sai(it is)", sory fo sorry and test for taste doesn’t make things authentically Haryanvi but wildly witty for the fans it seems. However, I still can’t fathom what was so funny about the Chyawanprash, "Baby ko base pasand hai" and "sit(shit) boy" jokes? The artificial divide of the interval render the film into two distinct, disjointed halves. The first one refuses to come alive what with the forced humour, the in your face starry moment - like the one of Sultan taking a tractor out of a pit, running past a train and also the overt, practiced cuteness of a country bumpkin eventually winning over his hard to please girl. But these cribs apart the film doed try and aim to do a lot of things other than presenting the color coordinated, long, choreographed bouts of wrestling(in which tractors are given away for gifts) for instance. In spite of being a Bhai film it showcase the women’s cause - PM’s beti bachao abhiyan in the backdrop of Haryana, infamous for female foeticide and a Iopsided sex ratio. what could be nicer? There are posters upon posters plastered on the walls of the village homes - "yahi vachan hai sabse achcha, rahe surakshit jachha bachha(the best vow is that mother and new born should both remain safe)" or "ghar mein shauchalaya banwayein, bahu beti baahar na jaayein(build toilets at home so that women don’t have to venture out)" There is Aarfa a women wrestler for a heroine. But for every step forward in breking the stereotypes there is the curiously disconcerting comfort of the status quo. That odd line that is thrown in about Aarfa’s father having brought her up "like a boy"’ She gets a stamp of approval for being baahar se modern per ander se desi(Rani Lakshmibai if you may please). And that age-old cliche gets reinforced that women has to be a man’s muse, there has to be a women behind every successful man problematic layers in it but the film refused plumb the depths of it. Then it wouldn’t have remained a bhai film