This is movie salman khan .the is better of eid salman khan Somewhere in the second half of the Ali Abbas Zafar film Randeep Hooda, who plays the coach of wrestler Sultan ( Salman Khan) says of him: “Jat hai na asli ( Isn’t 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 brownie 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 Haryanvi and 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 a joke. A juvenile, inane one at that. Saying “yo sai ( it is) ”, sory for 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 bass pasand hai” and “sit ( shit) boy” jokes?
Director: Ali Abbas Zafar
Starring: Salman Khan, Anushka Sharma, Randeep Hooda
Runtime: 2 hours 50 minutes
The artificial divide of the interval renders the film into two distinct, disjointed halves. The first one refuses to come alive what with the forced humour, the in your face starry moments — like the one of Sultan taking a tractor out of a pit, running past a train and also the overt, practised cuteness of a country bumpkin eventually winning over his hard to please girl.