Cast: Akshay Kumar, Sidharth Malhotra, Jackie Shroff, Jacqueline Fernandez, Ashutosh Rana, Shifaali Shah
Director: Karan Malhotra
Rating: 1.5 stars
Do Bhai. Sautele. Step-bros. Ek daddy. Do dead mommies. Because, in the flashback, daddy got talli one day and did a bad-bad thing. But good and alive mommy did a good thing. Unlike Masoom’s mommy, she took care of sweet sautela. But bad, sharabi, incorrigible daddy did one more bad thing and alive mommy went poof! Bad daddy went for chakki-peesing and peesing and peesing… and sautelas went alag-alag. Karan Johar cries. Karan Johar likes, story and Sidharth Malhotra.
Oho! But we’ve done this before. Many times. So many times. Family. Bichde bhai... Same-to-same. Ok-ok. Let’s do different. Make them Christian. Boxers. Ya! But how will audience samjho? Tattoos. Many. Very many. And Cross. Everywhere.
But sir, what to call them? Can’t call them Rahul and Rohan, na. Hmmmm... Chota bhai Monty (Sidharth Malhotra), bada bhai David (Akshay Kumar), and daddy be Gary (Jackie Shroff). Surnames? Raichand? Singhania?
Arre, nahin. Woh Christian surnames ki file lana… Braganza, Fernandes, Gonsalvez. Take your pick. Ok. So bada bhai is angry with chota bhai and sharabi daddy. Still. He not caring that daddy is done chakki-peesing, is repentant, not a sharabi and very weepy. Very.
Also, bada bhai very busy. He has own small, sweet family. One jumpy, weepy wife, and a cutie-pie beti who is ill. Teaching physics in school don’t pay bills. So he cries and after physics classes, he goes. Underground. To the sweating, bustling world of boxing where he could go poof! He no think of giving tuitions. He do dhishum-dhishum. Because daughter is ill. And there are bills.
Chota bhai only angry with bada bhai. Daddy he loves. But daddy love David more. Chota bhai cries. He also boxes. Like daddy, like bada bhai. Difference. Bada bhai fights to save family, chota bhai fights to be loved by daddy. All cry. First half. Weepy and slow.
Second half is courtesy one man with a pouf that is actually a dead croissant. He tells eager TV reporters about R2F. Right to fight, yaar. Because, haw-hai, India has been completely ignoring the very urgent need to legalise street fighting so that men with dolle-shole and serious and severe daddy issues can thrash each other, break their own and other’s bones.
Yes! That’s bad. Very bad. One TV commentator is very worried because “…local street fighting ko India mein hamesha crime ki tarah dekha gaya hai…” Don’t say! So croissant man hires a grand theatre with two yak-yaking commentators who channelise their inner Sidhu paaji.
In the film’s second half, as many bad-bad, white-white and wheatish-wheatish fighters in long chaddies come to fight our two sautelas, writer and director’s stupidity reaches epic proportions. There is Luca, “Hitler ke desh se”, and a Shaolin master from China called Tenzin (Karan Joharji, Dalai Lama is on the line), and idiot commentator is saying, “Ring mein die or never say die.” Hain?
Oho! Never mind. It’s all very emotional and touching and weepy. It’s all about the family, bhai. Then, climax. Two finalists. Two fighters. And it’s all shot so beautifully. Like our saas-bahu soaps. Camera on our sautelas who either get punched very hard, or throw deadly punches. Pause. Take it sink. Then cut to audience for big sighs of relief/weeping with grief. Then cut to family member 1. Family member 2. School principal. Students. Group of random, mixed-community street fighting fan group. All sigh/cry. Return to boxer. Repeat. And for relief from continuous wailing in the first half, and relentless boxing in the second, there’s a thakela item number, by Kareena. All boxes ticked. Box-office tricked.
Brothers. It’s fully faltu family drama. The sort we love. But it have no drama, only melodrama. And no bling, and no homo-erotic fun of WWF. It is a boring. And stoopid. Very. Good thing, our sautelas have muscles. Big-big. And tattoos. But poor Jackie only has a big, round-round tond. Jiggly-jiggly tummy. Like Kareena’s. Is that why he cry so much?
