A Flying Jatt movie review: Never really flies, barely crawls

Cast: Tiger Shroff, Jacqueline Fernandez, Kay Kay Menon, Amrita Singh, Gaurav Pandey, Nathan Jones
Director: Remo D’Souza

 

Fantastical tales with loads of action of derring-do featuring costumed crusaders fighting for justice have exerted a powerful hold on our popular imagination. And we have all loved them. After making F.A.L.T.U. and ABCD, which were fairly successful films, choreographer-director Remo D’Souza tries yet another youth-oriented fun film, A Flying Jatt. Aman (Tiger Shroff) is a martial arts school teacher in Kartar Singh colony, and lives with his brother Rohit (Gaurav Pandey), and firebrand Patiala-peg swigging mother Bebe (Amrita Singh), whom everyone fears and respects. She moved to this pristine land near the lake after her husband had died of lung cancer. But industrialist Malhotra (Kay Kay Menon), whose factories in the adjoining areas have started polluting the entire land with all the toxic waste that is dumped everywhere, has other plans: He wants to build a bridge to help him save his transport costs by 70 per cent, and needs to do away with the godly tree.

The Kartar Singh colony residents revere the tree that bears a divine sign and brings much relief to them, and, come what may, would never allow the tree to be removed. Bebe refuses to buckle under any pressure, and even beats up men whoever dares to approach her with a proposal. When a civil meeting, money power (dugni keemat!) and subsequent threats fail to elicit a positive response from her would not make her budge from her stand of not allowing the tree to be removed, Malhotra gets Rakka (Nathan Jones), a hunk whose size and strength petrify people, to bulldoze his way. In other words, this superhero movie had to be larded with the usual suspect, and Aman must meet his match; and so, Rakka seems like a perfect foil to the good-hearted bumbling Aman. As Aman meets his match in the evil Rakka, faces his nemesis — a somewhat deranged near-invincible hulk, a divine intervention helps him develop magical powers to fly…

Seeing him achieve special powers, his mother seems to be the happiest, and she clearly instructs him to be a do-gooder and save the city. Very soon, Malhotra’s evil schemings don’t work, and put an end to Rakka’s might. But is it the end of all worries for Aman and the rest? Soon, as Rakka feeds on pollutants, which act as stimulants and add more intensity to his powers, he reappears to regain his brute force — this time with even more invincibility. D’Souza props up his screenplay with many instructive lessons that could have been a fun ride for children. He inserts religious sentiments, nationalistic fervor, the eternal mother commanding the highest respect from her children, as also the mandatory love and romance and a brotherly concern in some funny and not-so-funny situations. But beyond a feel-good mishmash of borrowed scenes, he seems to have trouble coming up with fresh ideas.

Perhaps, since it is something about our collective conscience of seeking a champion who could rise up in troubled times that fantastical tales of such heroes never fail to amuse us. The imitators of such tales are legion, and their sensibility has spread through the culture to the extent that the satire long ago became very mundane, and an overused standard. D’Souza plays it safe here, and doesn’t care to add much craft and humour. But he should know that there are many other ways to qualify as a successful maker of a superhero romantic saga that thrives on more inclusive account, and not necessarily on religious and scientific mumbo jumbo, though, he essentially strings together scenes from other Hollywood movies, reconceives them as nonsensical and absurd logic around religion, space, nation, environment and pollution, a sentient tree, and is ready with a 151-minute film.

He could have used a weighted formula but not in a series of pop-culture happenings that have long ceased to shock or greatly amuse. Tiger Shroff’s still awkward, completely ill at ease at emoting, but not when he dances: that’s the only time when he cruises with grace. Jacqueline Fernandez never aims to do much on-screen, except to giggle, sway to the beat, and look pretty. Here too, she doesn’t disappoint. Amrita Singh could have taken advantage of her Punjabiyat to deliver a gritty performance but instead, she chooses — like she did in the Arjun Kapoor-Alia Bhatt starrer 2 States — to overact and not add a new dimension to the quintessential motherhood in Bollywood. This could have been a part of a definitive list of great superhero films, however, it never really flies high. Most of the time, it crawls, and is a pale reflection of earlier, better flying hero films — ones that transcended their source material to become unique works of fantasy art in their own right.