You know, we knew you can start whenever you want to.
You can drop that before he says that.
Welcome to Fear of Stairs, Desi Films Decoded.
The podcast where four different friends from different backgrounds unlock the world of Desi cinema.
I'm Winnie, the Desi who's never been to India.
I'm Killy. I'm the cinephile from India.
My name is Nicky. I'm the third culture kid from Thailand.
I am Adam, the American cinephile.
And this week we learned that if you do commit a crime, you got to time your pregnancy really well, and you could extend it by about five years.
So, Killy, you want to talk about this movie?
Yeah, yeah. This film is like, this film, Jawan.
It's like, it came out last year, right?
Yeah.
This is, this is, so this film, Jawan, this is the as Bollywood as we can get.
It's, it's like super...
Epic?
Yeah, it's in the epic proportion.
It's with the mega star, like the biggest star that Bollywood has right now.
And it touches upon social issue.
It has romance. It's full with musical numbers, a huge budget, and a huge success on the box office, and a huge fan service.
So this is like a quote unquote Bollywood film.
Yeah, just for context, the movie we watched before this had like no musical numbers or something.
And then Killy, who's been curating this movie list for us, we're like, do we want to see some musicals?
Like, where's some, you know, big Bollywood pictures? And so he chose this.
We didn't know anything going in. And you'd seen this before?
Yeah, but I skipped through it. Like, I didn't watch it.
And is that how you watch most movies, by the way?
No, no, no. It's just some movies that I just want to know what happens in the plot and get the vibe of the film. That's it.
I mean, yeah, yeah, but it's a good film though. Yeah, it's a good Bollywood film.
I think the funny part is when we were going into this film, we actually requested to watch like a really bad movie.
And then by Killy's standards, he said, this is a bad movie.
Number one film in India.
I think it's important to note that this film stars Sharukhan.
And for non Bollywood lovers, he's like the equivalent of Tom Cruise from Bollywood.
So any film he's in is bound to be a hit.
Yeah, Killy was like, here's some like slop. Like, we can check this out. I skipped through this.
And like, I, you know, I don't know anything about anyone. So like, sure.
You, Winnie, you know about, I'm going to see this is my issue is I'm always going to say Sharukhan from the Jungle Book.
Sharukhan.
OK, thank you. I'm really having a hard time like not saying Sharukhan.
Sharukhan.
Sharukhan. OK, thank you.
Yeah, he's like the biggest star right now, the richest Bollywood star right now.
So this film released in twenty twenty three and it was I think the yeah, it was the highest grossing film from India that year and also highest grossing film of Sharukhan ever.
And he actually like for the context, he came up with two back to back mega hits that like earned so much money.
It's so in Indian number system, we have gross like it's like that hundred crore club.
The crore is like ten million. So this was like this is like seventy five billion dollars or something.
No, three billion would be. Oh, my God. I should have calculated it before.
What are your thoughts on him, Winnie?
Well, Sharukhan's been like the biggest actor in Bollywood for the past 20 years, you know, so he's not new at all.
He's I grew up watching him. My mom's generation. He's like the heartthrob.
My mom, I'm pretty sure would leave all of us and just go marry him if she could.
Yeah. What are your thoughts of him? This is your first film. This is your introduction.
Completely blank slate. So I don't watch a lot of Indian cinema. Part of the reason I'm doing this is to be exposed to it more.
I've seen him before in photos and like I've heard, you know, like he's in People magazine stuff and he's a big star.
So I've seen his face, but I've never seen any movie he's been in before.
Nikki, did you see it? Well, I've heard of him through through college.
My classmate was I had this classmate that she was like literally fawns over him all the time, like fangirl.
I didn't know what the big deal was. But then, you know, seeing to one, I can understand why people love him.
He's like very charismatic. He is you can see that he's like an all in one package deal.
He's like very like like jacked. He can sing, dance, he can do action scenes very masterfully.
And yeah, I got to admit he's one good looking dude.
And he's in his fifties. So imagine what he looked like 20 years ago.
You know, he's still a heartthrob today. I actually saw like old videos of him when he was a lot younger.
He was less jacked. He aged like fine wine.
I mean, he looks a lot better in his fifties. Yes.
I think the director does a really good job in this movie, at least of like capturing his presence.
I think Shauru Khan like knows exactly how the camera sees him.
And so he knows exactly how to frame himself. And the director allows it.
So he just comes off as like superhuman the whole time.
And part of that's camera work. But the other part is just like I guess charisma and being a celebrity for so long.
He just knows exactly like how to look, how to glance. He has like full command of his face.
And that's really interesting. Yeah, I think I want to add on to that.
Like I think one of the things that I was kind of like laughing but also appreciating this film for was that he's like a legit Superman.
Like he is so invincible. Like you can't like he's always like a few steps ahead of, you know, the bad guys.
And I think it depends on whether you can, you know, suspend your disbelief.
And I think it works for the most part for me.
I think we're going to get into that a little bit later with like the plot and how he's always ahead of like everybody.
And, you know, there's a lot of twists and turns, which is what's what kept us all like glued to the screen.
Yeah. So let's get into it. So how does it start?
So I think first, first things first, we are we're presented with like a huge action scene.
We don't know who it was. He's like I think he was like bandaged all around his face.
And so far right off the bat, we see that he was like I don't remember where he was, but it was like up in the mountains.
It looks like Mongolia. I was going to like Tibet.
You remember? Yeah, it's supposed to be one of the Himalayas.
It's kind of it's not clear where it is. And I think they kept it kind of ambiguous.
Yeah. And then like basically he was doing all these acrobatics.
He was doing all these cool action shots.
And at the very end of that scene, I think it's like he had like he rose up among like flames and, you know, like I think the bandage, his mask comes off.
And then we get to see Shahrukh Khan in all his handsome glory.
I got to say in the beginning with his face wrapped in bandages, it looks like the Metal Gear Solid 5 character creation screen.
It also reminded me of the moon. What's that Marvel hero?
Moon Knight. Moon Knight. Yeah, yeah. Yes. Yeah.
Actually that I can see the resemblance. I also do think about what's his name again? Venom Snake. Yeah.
It looks like the mummy is just whacking people in a hill village.
It's like bizarre. And so moving on, you know, we don't know what's happening.
We just see that this guy is like really, really strong and everything.
And then suddenly we I think we fast forward a little bit to the present or whatever it was.
And it was like you have a bunch of these terrorists taking over the subway metro. And at first, like, I think I think this was the scene that I got a little confused because you can definitely tell it's Shahrukh Khan's character.
But then like he's doing this act of terrorism. And that's where it gets like confused.
Like, oh, OK, I thought he was like a good guy. And then suddenly he's doing like bad guy stuff like shooting a woman in a hijab.
That was like so funny. Like it was just like out of nowhere. Like Bollywood twist.
So you got to mention too, he has a bald cap. Yeah.
He reveals his face Shahrukh Khan, who has tremendously good looking hair, has a very obvious bald cap on and then like shoots point blank a woman in a hijab.
It's kind of shocking. Fast forward a little bit.
And we noticed that we get an introduction to the I think it was the lead actress.
I think her name was as Narmada Narmada G or as how Shahrukh Khan's character would say she's like this like tough like military officer,
not a police police officer, an anti terrorist squad or something like that.
Yeah. And then now you start to question whether who's the good guy here.
But what was more interesting is that this Shahrukh Khan's character, he introduces himself as Vikram Rathore, which is like to I guess for for these.
He's like a legendary criminal mastermind. And then like he has a bunch.
He has like a group of female soldiers, like about six of them.
And he like we find out his motivations because he started like telling the people in the train about how, you know, this is where.
Yeah, she's she's from a farming background.
So so the point this film's address is like there are many economical, social and political issues that are going on in India right now.
So the film really handles that very smartly. I mean, he addresses the farmer suicide like farmers being in debt and committing suicide.
That's a very recurrent theme in the recurrent problem in India.
Every year, thousands of farmers commit suicide. That's a very sad story.
So he brings up that story. And so this sorry, the filmmaker gives this backstory to one of the minions of Shahrukh Khan, like who comes from this background.
And in the first scene, he's showing that, oh, that's why we became terrorists.
Like she began she joined my gang because she has to avenge her father's and then her other community members.
And that's when the twist is happens that, OK, they are getting the money and then they redistribute to the farmers.
That's like a Robin Hood act of Robin Hood. So that's the recurrent theme in this film.
Yeah. But OK, so he's holding like the subway hostage, right?
And he's going he's talking to the Ministry of Agriculture and he's like, OK, so 10,281 farmers have committed suicide.
But then he complains about like the interest rate of like tractors versus Mercedes Benz.
Like that's that's his point. He's like, it's it's you get lower interest rates if you get a Mercedes and a tractor, which.
OK, cool. That doesn't really like we could talk about this later, but like his demands are quite low.
If he's just like once like interest rates to go down for tractors.
And so this girl on the farm, like the dad couldn't pay the bank debts, so they rip his towel off and the whole town sees him naked.
He gets embarrassed. He gets hung. Yeah.
So this this film like takes very serious problems in India, but it kind of touches over them.
It doesn't go in the deep of this problem because it's not in the scope of the film, because this film has to add like talk about like four or five topics.
And then they have to burst out in song and then like fight bad people like it's fine.
It just makes the stakes low. Like you didn't read about Robin Hood.
It was like he lowered interest rates for the peasants. You know, that's all.
I think you're just trying to show the disparity between the upper class and the lower class.
Right. Like like this woman's dad was actually his dad was really, really low.
And he ended up telling his daughter that, you know, she'll he'll see her when she comes back from school and he just chooses to hang himself
for a very low amount of money. And I think like contrary to a lot of other Bollywood movies, this movie goes pretty in depth about all of the political issues that India is facing.
And it does that in a very captivating way. Right. When Shah Rukh Khan has that speech on the train where he talks about corruption and the difficulties that farmers face.
I was personally quite intrigued. Like it moved me. Like so I think this this movie still goes a lot deeper.
I think one question that we had was when the father of this this woman hung himself.
I think he saw like a flyer of a woman like hanging or something. Do you guys remember that?
Oh, yeah. So I pretty much said that his family would get remuneration if a family member died. Right. Like death insurance or something like that.
So that was also a big reason. It's not usually on the posters. But yeah, I mean, like, I think that's interesting.
Does that actually exist in India? Because that was almost like encouraging people in that to take their lives.
It doesn't exist before. If you kill yourself, you can award your family so much money.
So it's kind of like open secret. There is a very nice film about it called Peepley Life where a farmer wants to commit suicide.
And then it becomes a like a news phenomenon. And then like all the paparazzis are in front of his house just waiting for him to commit suicide.
And then at one point he tries to back out and everyone is like, hey, why are you backing out? We're here for you.
It's a very satire dark humor film. Put on the list. Yep.
Yeah. So Kali kills one of the farmers to take over the land. And the farmer has a funeral.
And Kali is just standing there shit talking him, telling him that he's like a weak man in front of his family.
But he's going to adopt the child. And then the daughter rings his phone and he answers.
Yeah. And then we're going to learn that this Kali man is going to be a central character in the movie.
I think he's he's played by I don't know. Kali, do you know this guy like Vijay Sethupathi?
Sethupathi. Vijay Sethupathi. Yeah. Yeah. He's he's he's a very renowned famous actor from Tamil film industry.
Yeah. I see. Yep. So he's the bad guy.
And, you know, so we find out that this Vikram Rathore is like a Robin Hood type of figure, as Kali mentioned.
And we then find out the next scene is that this Vikram Rathore is not actually like a criminal mastermind,
but he's also like a jailer at this all female prison.
And this is where we get to know that, OK, so this guy is actually a good guy and he's like helping all these women.
So, OK, they have like a prison like a war show or something at the jail.
And they're presenting him as the best warden in the Indian prison system.
And he's standing up in front of all of the female prisoners that he's in charge of.
And they're all like cheering him on like you're the best warden ever.
I don't know why this like do they do this in every prison? Do they vote on the best warden?
They do it in every prison. Do they give like a tour?
Maybe it's like the Bollywood film Prison You Are the Best Warden.
And then also dance after every time someone's voted best warden.
And is it within the prison? Because like they're showing this only to their own female prisoners.
And they're sending it to a talk of other prison wardens.
So like did was it like does each prison get to vote for their own or is he the best in India?
It's unclear. But these these female prisoners.
He's celebrated. He's celebrated because he's doing good things. He's an awesome warden.
Yeah. Every inmates are so happy just having him as a having Shah Rukh Khan as a warden.
I think a lot of people would be happy.
They have a montage like he's like we did a radio station.
They're all like singing songs with him on the radio.
They build prosthetic limbs. They make clothes like uniforms for school kids like they're having the time of their life in jail.
What do you think? You mean these things don't happen in American prisons?
No, it's a correction home. It's not a prison.
But it's like it's like whistle while you work in Snow White.
But like just a bunch of prisoners who are forced to do it.
And they just love this guy. And like anyways, he's the best.
They're setting up a nice system where just one guy is in charge of a bunch of females that have to be there.
And they love him. Yeah. All right. Cool.
And then we get to see the film's first song, which was called like Zinda Banda.
Zinda Banda. I don't know. Winnie, what's the song called? Zinda Banda.
Yeah. You dance to it sometimes. I know.
Yeah. So this is like I dream of it every night. Yeah.
So I think I think the jail, the feeling that prison.
I'll commit a crime intentionally just to get into that jail.
You have to fight off all those other lesbian prisoners and get to him. It's hard.
So this is like a very explosive song.
It's like, you know, you can.
This is where I think for me is where I start to see why Shahrukh Khan is a man of many talents.
Yeah. This is the Bollywood like this is one of the key feature of Bollywood blockbuster.
And yeah, I mean, this song is songs are like kind of almost becomes like non-digitic in a way that it's like that it exists in the world.
But so how can you tell when it's reality and when it's a fantasy?
Because I think some Bollywood films, it's meant to be a fantasy.
Like these things are not really happening, but some films that just transition to the next.
You just know from the language of it, like there are some there are some songs where you can really see that they're imagining.
Right. Like there are a few songs that say like the like the two love interest, like they're watching a film and they start imagining themselves in the film itself.
So that's clearly an imagination, like a fantasy in the film.
It's not really happening or someone is dreaming of someone like, you know, like in anticipation of him or her coming or becoming a lover of the other person, anticipation of that love they're singing.
But these kind of things, but this song is feels fantasy, but it's actually happening in the jail.
It's on the borderline of fantasy and realism. It's it's it's happening.
It's like a Greek chorus. Like it's just setting up the goalposts of the next, you know, movements of the movie.
Yeah, right. So how does the song end here?
Nikki, like how what is the next scene after that?
So right after the end of the song, we find out that what was the name again?
Narmada, Narmadaji.
So we find out that Shah Rukh Khan's character is about to meet.
He's about to meet this woman. I think like he bumps into this little girl and then like she's trying to set him up with her mom.
And that's when we find out the big twist is that Narmadaji is the woman that he's matched with.
And and then that's when we know, oh, OK, you know, they don't know they're I mean, she doesn't know who he really is.
And then it's like, oh, so she doesn't know who he is. OK.
But he knows who she is and he recognizes her and knows that she's like his arch nemesis and knows that he will continue talking to her and marries her.
Instantly, he decides to do that. Also, also, it's an arranged marriage.
It's not like they fall in love. How do you know it's an arranged marriage?
Is the daughter the arranged marriage? What happens in arranged marriage is usually like the tradition, like an old school arranged marriage in like, you know, when someone brings them, brings the contact together.
Right. And the parents gets involved first.
It's like so usually the girls or the boys family goes visit the other person's house and then see the see the person.
So here the here they did a flip on that here instead of her guardian.
It's like they put put her daughter as her guardian, like, you know, like she came and she's with all her swag and like, you know, taking a call whether she can like her mother can marry this guy or not.
So they get play a little twist on that. So, yeah, it's the arranged marriage.
And then like they just fall in love over a song and then they're just dating and stuff like that. They're in love. They're not dating. They're in love.
They fall in love right away after watching a few Bollywood movies.
This is my one like the musicals are a really good shortcut for filmmakers because they can just skip ahead a bunch of time and establish stuff.
But things like courtship get lost and like how to talk to girls before you marry them is not shown at all.
You know, that has to be only in romantic films where romance is the only thing that's happening in the film here. They have to put up like social problems, fight action.
But there has to be a romantic angle as well. Otherwise, it's not a Bollywood film like like, I mean, Bollywood doesn't like quote unquote Bollywood film.
There is no romance. There is no heroine and like hero heroine dynamics, but they have to fit in all these all these things and then also the romance blooming.
So they just cut short because it's a trope. OK, as an audience, you know that they're going to fall in love and then you just like breeze through it.
But people take their cues for movies. And if you don't show like the point leading up to being in love and you're just instantly in love and saying that's what happens in India.
That's not great. That's what happened in India. Like a guy goes goes out, sees a girl, smiles and that's how they fall in love.
That's that's a sarcasm. Right. OK. OK. That's growing up.
Killy, did you was that no, but that's how did you think it worked for me?
I thought like you have to talk to a girl and then but I should think like, oh, but but that Bollywood like sanctity of love was in my head that OK, oh, if if a girl falls in love with me, that's it.
Like she will love me forever. Like that kind of thing is always there.
And the Bollywood taught us like, oh, that's the thing.
But we also I also watched the romantic films where the guy has to put some work, a little bit of work to get the girls. Yes, a smile.
No, that's a smile is in these kind of films where the romance is not on the like blooming of the romance is not in the plot point.
Romance is just being used to something. So they just cut through it.
So in Bollywood films, character like this kind of Bollywood films, this kind of big budget blockbuster Bollywood films are very much depending on dependent on spectacles instead of like a character journey, character growth, like story arc, all these things.
It's big spectacle. So so let's say they have to heighten the stake of this hero and heroine working against each other in the work field.
But they're in romance. So that's the and then subsequently whatever happens, like, you know, saving each other or whatever stuff.
So that's that's the spectacle. But they don't really need to get into like like in these films, they don't really get into the details of how that bloom.
Like that also like suspension of disbelief. Like you just take it granted.
Like, OK, this is a hero and he's the hero. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Of course, they're in love. They're going to be in love. Yeah. So that's that's the easy way out.
Whether it's that easy. And that's the that's the Bollywood film language that they use. Yeah. Yeah.
So one of the reasons why I said that, OK, this is a cheesy film. Yeah, because I love like character journey and growth. I'm so snobby. Anyway, yeah. This is as cheesy as it is.
You know, we get we get that song where we, you know, I think it's called like Jaleya.
Yeah, yeah. That's the romance song. Right. The romance blooms. Yeah. And then like this is where the whole suspension of disbelief is where it like, you know, this is where the both characters get to like, you know, express their love, feel like a deep connection with each other.
And, you know, right after that, after that sappy kind of song, you know, we get we get into the more political stuff where I think the next scene was like the hospital politician, the health minister.
He was like giving a speech. And I think this is one of my favorite unintentionally funny scenes where he was saying like, aim at my heart or something. And then one of like Vikram's one of Shah Rukh Khan's like female minions decided to just snipe him in the heart.
And for context, he's the he's like given a speech like one part of the shoulder in the chest or in the shoulder or something. He was saying like, look, as the politician, I made these great public hospitals.
I would go to them. If you shot me right now, I'd go to it right now. Shoot me, shoot me. And then like the guys like Gaddafi team of female military people just like snipes him in the chest and then he has to go to a public hospital.
And throughout the scene where he's giving the speech, like they just keep showing the hospitals, the public hospitals where people are dying, they're operating and the light goes off. So it's a really cool juxtaposition.
It looks like a war zone in there. And they're like running out of canisters like at the moment. They're like, we need canisters now. They're like, we don't have any. We all are super corrupt. We all get money from everyone. Screw you and hang up.
And they blame the nurse. And he's basically like, if you don't believe I've solved the public health crisis, shoot me. Yeah.
So we get shot. Yeah. Yeah. To be honest, I have seen politicians making that claim. Oh, if I don't do this, like kill me. Like, no. What a nice invitation. Have they ever been shot in real life?
Not the ones who claim this, but the ones who asked for like who were like. Yeah. So we find out that the I think though it was a sniper, was it?
I think she was like a hospital and then she demanded some. I don't remember what it was, but it was like canisters, canisters that oxygen canisters, canisters and like her children like needed because they're suffering from encephalitis.
And, you know, she was she didn't get it because I think the I think it was the health secretary who said something like, you know, he kind of pointed out like it was the infrastructure. They're like on some commission or something.
Yeah. So what happened? It this this incident is also loosely based on some true story. Oh, I was going to ask you about that. What do they call it?
What do they call it? Bofol disaster or something? Bopal. Oh, Bopal disaster is one like this.
So Dow Chemical had a plant in because that point of time in India, you have to have like public private public partnership to run anything. So Dow Chemical was union car ride in India.
And they have for their negligence. They has a gasoline. They had a gasoline and many people died and people become sick. I think that phone conversation she has with the health secretary is pretty telling, right?
Because she she threatens that if he doesn't get the canisters, she'll inform the health minister, like go to a supervisor.
And that's when he kind of breaks down the commission system and he's like this top man gets the highest commission. So go to him.
And that kind of highlights how the infrastructure is broken from like the top down and there's no way out of this for her. Yeah. So it's it kind of loosely based on a true story where one of the doctors like he procured the cylinder cylinders for the kids in not like a proper way because it was so emergency.
And the hospital was running out of the essentials. And like this was a problem. They used to pick bring up all the time that if there is an emergency that that's going to happen, like we don't have enough stock and that.
And that happened and he had to like procure cylinders and then he got the cylinders and then he did save some people he did couldn't save some people. But but so it's a very powerful like the powerful politicians like they made it a case against him for procuring the things.
And he I think he was. Yeah, he was let go from that hospital. He was like removed from suspended from that hospital. I think he didn't lose his license. I don't remember that whether he lost his license or not.
But he was removed from the thing. And that was a huge uproar in India. But at that point, the political climate was like I was like so one sided the power imbalance in India. So it kind of everything.
There are like cases like this left and right and they were dying down gradually. So so that that's one of the things. So these films like as I said like they get take the plot points or the backgrounds of the people from the real incident and then gives Bollywood twist on it and and make develop on it.
So that's really commendable that they did this in that political climate that it came out that time. It was really commendable that time. Yeah. Last year. Yep. Okay. Okay. Well, I think I don't know as as as a non Indian right when I when I saw this when I watched the scene the first time through.
I don't think I was I would be able to pick up on how it was based on a true story. Yeah. So I think there was like you know not that you told me you know it kind of makes the scene even more compelling I guess in a way.
So yeah that's that's a nice touch. I guess I think there's to fully enjoy Joanne you have to like know these kinds of things I would say for me I feel like actually to be honest but it's just like I mean these kind of tremendous bad story that like people suffer through is always there in Bollywood films.
Right. But just the thing is that it's based on true story here so that it adds like extra like a gravitas to the whole thing.
That's it. I imagine this is relevant to a lot of like developing countries as well. Right. It's not just it is it's kind of the fact that public infrastructure is a public hospitals education they're usually so short on resources, but they exist like these rich people have the ability
to see these politicians have the ability to provide it but they just choose not to. Yeah. So I think it's highly relatable. I think COVID exposed that a lot to exactly. India had so much of lack of oxygen cylinders.
Yeah.
So, so he, the health minister gets shot, and you know we find out that he gets kidnapped by the ambulance and he gets kidnapped, and we hear we see the crime or a floor as like in his one of his many disguises.
So like one thing to know that is like he was negotiating for like better infrastructure, better better health care system.
And I think the funny part was that I think I always laugh at the same because they like they managed to negotiate successfully negotiate, like the, the re rebuilding of the infrastructure and it's like the
yeah, yeah, but really really quick, he's again talking to his girlfriend at the moment, like the woman he's engaged to. Yes, he's, he calls her up and he knows he will he asked for her.
And he, she doesn't know but he again knows. Yeah, now, don't you think he's like okay either either. If you're with her, don't you like try to sabotage her or like learn about her job or infiltrate, or if you love her kind of give her a
heads up and be like, yeah, maybe like need some medical supplies. This week, maybe you should stockpile like, hey, have you heard about this cool guy that like is like sabotaging everything and we're making your life hell.
He loves her. Yeah. Why, why. Okay, cool. He loves her. Sure. Take it on that. Or like, you know, he loves her. Okay. He loves her but he doesn't love who she works for. And I think he sees that, okay, she will come around because she's a good person.
She's doing her job right now but she's just working for this system that is fucking screwing common people so we have to screw the system and take things out of the system and be Robin Hood so but she's a part of the system as a worker there like is a part of
is like a god will of the system but as a person she's good because she has good intentions at heart so he loves her so here he takes like, I think, he's being a dick though professional conflict of interest.
If my boyfriend or girlfriend like was making my job harder I'd be so pissed if I found that out. Imagine like you have two competitive consultancy firm.
And then say project. Imagine, knowing that your partner is working for the bad guys is working to uphold corruption to some degree. Like, I would sympathize with him a little bit more than her in this case, because he's trying to do good like I think it's been pretty
obvious from the train incident he tried to give a lot of money to farmers.
She's trying to uphold and force corrupt laws. A cap kill the laws are not corrupt people are. Okay, move on. Move on. Move on. All right, so, so he vikram says like, he tells his girlfriend, you got to fix every hot every hospital in India in five hours right.
I kind of like lost track like whether it's all India is just happening about talking about one state. I think it's talking I'm still talking about one. Oh, a way more manageable.
Sometimes, they're like installing toilets, they're fixing everything. Yeah, in five hours. Yeah, that's where we have to be devil of India. Yeah, five hours.
Indian health care, sold in five hours in the quote they one of the politicians like says the only thing required is the intent of the system so he's like we could have been doing this the whole time we just didn't want to until.
Yeah, that's why someone showed us film goes like, yeah, like, like, you know, that's why I'm like, okay, it's, it's all good.
But sure consists that when his girlfriend says we can't do all this in five hours and he's just like, well, you guys had 10 years and you didn't do anything so get on it, and they succeeded.
They did it.
The way it's the whole when you hold a gun against the head. You can do anything in five hours, turns out bureaucracy is bad just cut through the red tape demand to be done in five hours and have no need for tenders.
Yeah, just buy things. Yeah, and put on it, but the way it was presented I thought it was pretty funny, like, yeah, that's that's four hours when it could have been 10 years modern problems require modern solutions.
Exactly like I can't get behind the solution part of this film but it addresses the problems that are actually real.
Oh, the easy part pointing out problems. Yeah, just sort out the problems. Okay, right.
Right solution there there was a film that were this guy this guy journalist he becomes a chief minister for a day. Okay, and then he turns the state around in one day, doing everything. And then the party who actually offered him on an interview to be a chief minister for a day like tries to kill him and stuff.
And then he does a big action film and it's like all this crazy but that also like he just runs around in this capital city and then fix the whole state, just in a few hours.
Yeah, possible. Yeah, very possible. That's what. Yeah.
So what happened next. I think there was like a big action scene where he fights his girlfriend. Yeah, he does fight his girlfriend in like a Phantom of the Opera ask mass or the undertaker.
And then like, I think, I think, Normata, she does like a very like Street Fighter kick towards him and we get this like really cool action scene which I think is, you know, that's the best thing I like about this movie has everything it has like cool action scenes well choreographed, despite the, you know, bad shit turn of events.
And, you know, moving, moving on like the weight if Normata was attacking character who would she be, according to Kelly Nina Williams.
Yeah, she has these guns, guns around her like you know like, like sidekicks. Yeah.
How you know oxen.
I was obsessed with them and I was watching this film with Shahrukh Khan be gin, gin.
He resembles gin a little bit. Yeah, but they don't have a chemistry in tech and though but it doesn't matter. He looks like a tech and character like his outfit. Oh yeah, of course, as the mummy and his dad later on.
Yeah, download download it will cost. But the bald one is the most expensive one. The John one video game is really fun where you like blow up a bunch of subways and fight women and host a dance at the prison labor camp it's fun.
Yeah, in the name of justice. Yeah, quick time events involving dance sequences.
I get to see that they're about to get married.
Fight fight one night and next day you see a wedding. She doesn't recognize her her fiance and like just some white paint is on his face there they're fighting hardcore. And yeah yeah then they get married after they're about to get married but this is the big reveal where I think they were on their honeymoon or something and then like, she goes through his phone.
Yeah, it was like a mask. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, from the fight, they know they sound like a sketch of a person who resembles mask falls off during the fight and since the mask was cast on his face.
So they do a sketch based on that mask and then it's exactly Shah Rukh Khan and then she sees the photo. Well the weird thing is she's like hey take this photo of this guy in the mask and make him like five years younger and five years older or something like that.
Oh yeah yeah yeah and then they do it but that is him current age so I don't know why that would change anything because they don't age. Right. You see Shah Rukh Khan 10 years back, you see Shah Rukh Khan now that he plays the same age character so yeah so they don't age.
But what's really funny is like you see Shah Rukh Khan have this moment where he's kind of thinking about telling her the truth like his guilt conscience is finally arising, but he only plans to do it after the wedding is already done.
Okay, okay, okay, okay, this is an Indian thing right like avoiding conflict until after you get married.
And then you're trying to bring him out to kind of be good for doing that for wanting to tell her. Yeah, afterwards. No, I'm sorry but I watch a lot of reality shows too and it seems like a running theme of like just waiting like after the wedding after the wedding I'll tell everything.
Maybe after they have a kid. Oh no she already had a kid. Okay. Yeah, she's pretty washed up. But it's too late because when he's about to tell her she has already seen the sketch. On the night of the honeymoon.
Just to make it a little spicier. Oh, by the way, like, the other way you found me yesterday and want me dead. They already like fucked each other right. No, I mean, yeah, I mean, they're not married yet. Oh, okay.
So are they not allowed to I think they had a love scene. They didn't have sex. They didn't have. Oh, no, how can you have sex before marriage. So it's that strict. They know you can try to kill each other but you can't have sex. According to the movie.
She finds out before anything happens. Yeah, so she finds out before anything happens. Right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's that's that says the girl. Yeah, so sad. He must have waited months for this.
I think he just wanted like wanted to spice up the equation just before the love.
So ready I was so ready.
We fight we make love.
I thought they had a love scene like where they know. No, they didn't. In a in a dance scene or something. A song scene. I don't know. They kind of like, you know, kissy kissy lovey lovey. No, that's when they meet.
Well, I think kissing in Bollywood film kind of implies that kissing. Are you waiting for actual love scene. I guess I was. Sorry. No, no, no, no, no, no. If they're intimate they're like looks like they're in a photo shoot of a cover magazine like a romance magazine.
All I remember is that means they're having sex.
And then the butter kind of flies over them and covers everything and then you can just kind of see their legs. So they have feet on top of each other. Yeah, there are many things like yeah. So it's okay to have sex before marriage. No, you will be. I don't know.
So they didn't have that. So it didn't happen then because they had like a wedding song.
Oh, then it's okay I think before marriage. I don't know. I'm like a little confused. No, they just had like a courtship scene like where they they just pronounce their love to each other and stuff.
So they've never had sex. If they hold hands it means like raw dog. No, no, no, no, no, holding hands. We are really holding hands. It's like just romance like holding hands means they're in love. Okay. So what happens after.
Like, be very close that their face being very close to each other over a music number and you know, like putting hands over her body and stuff that means sex. Okay. Yeah, got it. Hands over body.
Yeah, that's pissed because like they aren't doing any of this and she brings up the photos and he was like so close and he was going to tell her right after they did it. Yeah, he's a bad guy. He missed his chance.
This is what I get for being a criminal mastermind son of a bitch. She found out I was going to I was going to spoof her. It was going to be a good guy. I was going to tell Kay telling her by myself that all the guy you're like losing your sleep over to chase.
That's me who's not letting you sleep anyway. It's going to be a fun surprise. Okay. So the Desi cats out of the bag and they're fighting and I think they she shoots him. Yeah, she shoots him up to saying like Suzy the daughter is not negotiable and then he gets shot.
But he's okay because he's shot a gun and you know, I think that's when the bad guys storm the place and kidnaps the both of them. And then we get this like torture scene.
So the conflict conflict is kind of resolved their conflict between because the bad guys take both of them. So now they're okay. It's very unresolved.
But the bad guys think that they're on the same team right they think that this has been a whole criminal mastermind where she's working with him. She's pretending to chase him. But then she'll just help him escape. Yeah.
So they're torturing them both. Exactly. And then sledgehammer start swinging and hitting faces and you don't know who it is. Yeah. And that's when we get to the big twist, which is Shahrukh Khan again.
Wow. It's his dad. It's his dad. And it's like I think this is the thing that took I guess me and Adam by surprise because Keeley you said that, you know, in usually in these films they, you know, relative like a father and son or whether it's like mom or daughter I'm guessing.
Yeah. It's a very common theme. It's a very common trope. It's all played by the same actor. Yeah. I mean, not necessarily all the time they are played by the same actor. Most of the time they are not played by the same actor. But whenever they're being played by the same actor, it's the language of these films that you have.
The audience already know, oh, that means this guy is his father. So when you see the old age version of one character, like the same actor, you already get, oh, that means he's his father. So not necessarily every time the father would be played by same character, same actor.
But if it is happening, it's a thing that you already know that he is his father. And if he's not, then that becomes a twist. But here it's not. He's his father.
Which I mean, fine. But visually it means that the mom is with both the same guy as a husband and as a mother.
No, the mom died when he was five year old. I just mean generally. Oh, yeah.
And also it very happens when the father, it happens a lot in the films where the father and son is kind of separated either by death or by virtue of some accident or something. That's when this is played.
There are there's only a few films where like a son queue up in the family house and just become a father. It was played by Avita Bachchan. And that was so weird thing to see. It's just like a young guy just growing up in the same household.
And yeah, the father and the son looks the same.
Yeah. And then I guess this is the big twist. Right. He's the father. Shar Khan is the father as well. And we find out that this particular man is the real Vikram Rathore.
And this person that we've been watching, the criminal mastermind, is actually his son. Yeah. And that was like, name Azad, I think. Yeah.
The jailer. Azad means freedom. Ah, OK. There you go.
The jailer named Freedom. He's the warden named Freedom. Yep. It's cool. Yep. That's why everyone was dancing. We got our freedom guy.
And his freedom is represented as a man, as a warden. Yep. Yeah.
And so with this revelation in mind, Narmada, I think she disguises herself as an inmate because she knows that Azad has these women soldiers, inmates.
And this is where we find we this is where she finds out and we the audience about, you know, what is up with Vikram Rathore and Azad like what's the what's the thing?
What is this? What is this? And I think we're you know, we're getting into this another flashback scene where Vikram Rathore is like he's like the captain of a I think it was like Indian Army in the Indian Army.
Yes. And like their guns weren't working. That was the problem. Yeah. The villain guy. He's like a weapon manufacturer, like weapon supplier for the army.
And his guns are not working. And he's so asshole about it. Like he's like, it doesn't matter. Sometimes it works.
Sometimes it works. And doesn't. So the soldiers are dying. And then. Yeah. But but yeah. Then what happens? And then like, you know, they, you know, Vikram, they got out of that battlefield war zone, that mission that they were on.
And they wanted to file like this complaint about how, you know, the to the supplier weapons like, you know, they're having malfunctioning guns. And I think we get to see like this is I think this is where it gets confusing upon first watch because we have to remember that this is the father.
So he goes back home to his wife, which is played by another actress. Deepika. Yeah. Deepika Baudipourn. Pretty woman. She they have like a little I think there was a dog in there. It was like Indian.
Like there was a dog. They had a dog that was going like they were like he comes back home to her. Right. And then there was like a little dog and then they went to sleep or something. And then that's when the bad guys.
Oh yeah. Dogs gonna die. I said. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then we were like, oh, wait, this is straight out of John Wick. And it was John Wick. The dog gets shot. Yeah.
And then it was it was crazy. So yeah. So basically like the I think it was the men from the supplier. Right. That like attack them. And they kidnapped they come onto a plane.
That's when we you know frames the him for some he's connected with the office top officials in the army and the police. And then he frames him for some money laundering and then like weapon malfunctioning bullshit.
And then like yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think. Oh yeah. And then like he gets kidnapped and then his wife gets surrounded by these cops.
And I think she kills she kills them in self-defense. And that's how she ended up in jail which we find out is the exact same prison that Azad is taking care of in the present day.
Yeah. She's given life sentence given a life sentence. And I think this is one of those one of the best scenes. It's like she's about to be hanged for her treason or whatever.
And like right before she gets hanged, she feints. And then they were like feeling her pulse on her wrist. And they were like, oh, she's pregnant.
Yeah. Doctor comes up and then they go. She's pregnant. She just knows from the pulse. Oh, yeah. I think. Yeah. The pulse gets doubled with your your pulse and yours kids pulse in your room.
So your pulse is just doubled. Yeah. Okay. That's that's the 160 beats per minute. Oh, yeah. That other human inside her.
So we find out in this next musical number. Wait, wait, wait. Oh, no, no, no.
So then the thing. Yeah. No, no, no. This is the scene. So when so they're like, hey, she's pregnant. And then the the the I don't know if the warden or whatever says, according to Indian law, if a convict is pregnant, she cannot be hung till the child is five years old.
Right. Yeah, that was an important bit. Is that a thing? That's that. I don't know.
So according to this movie, if you're pregnant, they can't hang you. The child grows up in the prison with you. Yeah. You're raised by like essentially like a like a fenec. Wait, who are all the women in Wonder Woman? They raise him like he's like in the Wonder Woman island.
Themyscira. Thank you. So it's a bunch of like like Indian prison warriors like raising this boy. He lives for five years here. So but what I'm wondering is if you have a kid and he's like one year old, do they hang you?
Do they or do they let that kid be five before they hang you and let his mom die in front of his eyes? But like, isn't it like more dramatic if you grow around your mother for five years and then your mother gets hung?
Think about the mom raising that kid, knowing the minute he turns five, you're going to die.
You think it would be better to just hang her right then instead of letting her raise her for five years? No, just after the delivery. Right after the delivery. Yeah, so that you're not hanging two people, you're just hanging one person and then the kid gets fostered.
I think it's better than being raised in a prison and then watching your mom die when you're five. Way better than like killing your mother like when you're five. I think that's like, and one sudden they like you were growing up and five is pretty impressionable age. Like you remember things. It's not two years old or something like that.
It's how to make a terrorist 101. That's how you do it. It's like impressionable age. You remember the fondness of your mother and then your mother is killed by the law. In front of him. In front of him. So they make the five year old watch and they're like, all right, get out of the prison, I guess.
Yeah, that's how he gets the motivation to do right. Yeah. So yes, he gets raised around all these female inmates and we learned that this is a Zod. Trauma, man. Trauma. Trauma. And he.
I think, oh, another thing that I remember is that we find. Okay, so we find out that Vikram survived that attack. Yeah. In the past. Loses his memory. Loses his memory. Yeah. Absentee father.
He rescued him. Yeah, the memory. This is what they said. They're like he can he can he has muscle memory. He can like speak. He can kill people. He just has no clue at all about anything else. So he's just like a like a killing machine that grunts sometimes. Yep.
Like you look like I'm smoke cigar. Yeah. Very cool. I like he said something to the other like you look like me, but I don't know you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hang on. He calls his younger self handsome.
So it's the same guy looking at himself and saying how handsome he is and the other guy crying saying like I love you, Papa. It's to himself. Just telling himself how beautiful he is, which is pretty cool.
Shargun has done so many double role film before. That's pretty interesting, right? I don't think you see that. But I don't think he has done father and son combo before. It used to be like hero and villain. Oh, really? Yeah. He has done films like where he's both.
Have a twins. How does the movie explain that? I don't remember whether in that film they were twins or not. I put on the list duplicate. I got to say also when they're when they're raising up Azad in the prison, they hold they keep holding him up like Simba, you know, in Lion King. Yeah.
Bring that up later in the movie like Mufasa. Yeah, they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's this dig. Yeah. They love Lion King in this movie. Yeah. Big influence. Also, yeah. Indian films making reference to other films is very common.
And it's like, like some shots will be designed in a way that makes fun of or either like, you know, like they do it many times, like, you know, referencing other films, other actors, even even sometimes referencing the same actors, other films. Oh, yeah.
They go do that so often. Oh, yeah. OK. Yeah. So this this song that like there is this musical number right during when he's growing up. I think it's called like I'm going to put you this. I'm sorry.
I don't know. Yeah. But yeah, it depicts his childhood. Right. And then like his mom tells tells him that when he's five years of age that like, you know, you've got to prove that your father is innocent. And that's when we get to learn that he has this motivation for, I guess, revenge to avenge his father.
And that's when we know that. OK, we know about his motivations now. And what happens after that?
No. So so then it's his last hostage act. So they're in the prison and they reveal that they stole all the voting machines. So they have the whole prison is filled with voting machines. And he says that he has to have his demands met. And the demand is he wants 40 factories removed.
They want the factories removed. I think that fact those factories are polluting. Yeah. It was like bad factories. So he makes like tens and tens of thousands of people lose their job instantly in exchange to vote.
So there's a prison full of voting machines and he wants to close 53 factories. Yeah. Yes. OK. Go on.
So like, OK, there's like a big action scene. I think that was the it's the explosive climax. And it's like a bunch of vehicles chasing after each other. You have a Zod, you have Vikram and his men.
And we get to see this whole bombastic, this whole bombastic chase scene. There's like egg throwing. There's like Molotov cocktails that, you know, people think at one point Shahrukh Khan slides under the car with his motorcycle.
Level of projectiles, man. Egg and then Molotov cocktails. Always bring eggs to chase. You got to talk about the cigar going in the motorcycle tank. And then like he like drives like, you know, they were they stop at a dead end.
I'm not sure it was a dead end, but basically he gets off Shahrukh Khan's character gets off the motorcycle and then turns, you know, spins it around, flicks his cigar. The cigar magically lands into the gas canister.
And then he just kicks the motorcycle into the wave of approaching villains and it just explodes. And I think that's like, you know, it cannot get over the top.
It's classic. It's like straight up anime action scenes. Slow motion on and off. It's super rad. It looks like Matrix like reloaded car scenes with some Mad Max. Yeah, it's pretty fun.
And then, you know, because there were two Shahrukh Khan's in that scene.
Yeah, he catches the, the villain catches the father and things. That's the.
Yes. And, and, you know, he finds out that, you know, there's two Shahrukh Khan's. The villain finds out there's two Shahrukh Khan's. And this is the scene where I think is a message to the audience.
Yeah. So, so this is his main complaint. So he has a request to talk on TV and talk to all the Indian citizens.
And he basically says that you fuss over everything except voting for politicians. He's like, five hours you spend trying to figure out which mosquito coil to buy.
But, you know, for a politician that's ruling something for five years, you don't give any thought at all about. And he says you don't ask any questions at all when voting.
And so his only demand is that you just ask questions to the people you vote for. That is it. Yeah. That is his demand. Simple solution. Do you not ask questions to politicians? No, we don't. Is that true? Yeah.
You just listen to whatever they don't go in the news. That side of politics had really gone quite from the people or the various civil societies and stuff like that. People don't like, for example, the prime minister hasn't wasn't interviewed at all.
Like even even even for before election, they don't give any manifest proper manifesto. No one cares about the manifesto anymore. It's just like on on like overarching theme of, you know, communism or non-communist like secularism is overarching theme of OK.
Oh, yeah. So much corruption or not corruption. No one thought talks about the policy like, oh, if you come like what policy is going to be if you come like what what what are the changes you're going to do in the health sector or the education sector?
No one even like talks about it anymore. That's that's really gone down. So that's what they're voting for. They just vote for their favorite parties right now.
Like it's it's it's it's it's been very polarized situation in India. People are taking in the informed decision, of course, but the information is not policies that they're going to implement after they come.
The informed is information is identity of those parties. So that's he's talking about. And also here, like the the the the villain is like taking money from the like some underworld dawn from underworld mafias from around the world.
And then he's saying, oh, I'll just invest this money, give money to people and they will vote for me and I'll get the government. And that that's how you can do whatever you want in India.
But OK, this is a very oversimplification of thing, but it has certain truth to it that it's like, you know, taking money from the chronic corporates and then giving them back after you win.
It's it's it's it's very similar to some other countries. It has been a recurrent theme. There is a thing called election bond that was introduced and now it's been canceled.
So in election bond, like you don't have to disclose like who is giving you how much money.
So it's like after it was disclosed that it was discontinued and the Supreme Court asked to disclose that we saw like how much disparity it had, like from the two major political parties, like one party is getting like 80 percent of like a huge sum of money from the chronic corporates.
And then, of course, like they look after their interest of the election. So that's that's another topic that they touches touches on in this film.
And there is like vote buying thing happens a bit, but it's not a big, not that explicit that you give money and people just vote for you.
But it happens in certain pockets and certain areas like, you know, yeah, but if people are OK, if you're just asking questions.
So the movie presents the bad guy as a businessman that uses his money and power to make politicians do what he wants. Right.
Hmm. OK. So if you just simply ask the politicians questions, does that remove the bad guy's ability to do any of that?
No. Right. So this is I think the issue necessarily is I don't think asking questions is necessarily going to fix oligarchs, you know, like poisoning farmers or making politicians go back on it.
So even if you ask him what policies they have, number one, they can just lie.
I think that's kind of a weird demand to make of just asking questions.
But then also it doesn't solve the root cause. The movie presents, which is not that you didn't ask questions, but that a rich guy can just kind of move people with his will.
Yeah. So he's more like, yeah, I mean, that the disparity the film has with the thing it's trying to address and the solution it's giving. Right.
I mean, he says. But all he does is like fight and kill the bad guys. It's like one bad guy.
He is presenting the solution, which is killing the bad guys and the rich people.
He is doing that in the film, but then saying, don't do that.
He's saying and in the film, they say we can only do this once.
They're like, usually we don't meet terrorist demands, but we'll just do this one time because we've been pretty bad and lazy.
But he is doing the answer there, which is they hang the rich guy.
But his demand is that you just ask the politicians to vote. It's a very disparate message. Yeah. He's doing what you should be doing.
No, but that's the whole essence of democracy. He's not doing that.
The hero is not doing that. Yeah. You do part once a 10 year and then you go back to democracy. That's the point.
No. Yeah. Yeah. True. True. I can understand the point.
But I think also what he's addressing is like ask questions to your politician.
It's been really one point the activist has been asking for a long time that we don't hold the politicians accountable after they're elected.
We don't demonstrate against their bad policies.
Like we don't we don't keep that going. Keep that wheel of democracy going. Like it's just like lose hope for five next next five years.
And we don't don't even even even the politics has been changed so much towards things that is not development or infrastructural issues a lot.
It's been identity. Yeah. Like you know like religious identity and then all these things. And then here it's like just chronic capitalism and everything.
And you just don't do anything. So it's a very mixed up message. And it's a very yeah.
I totally agree with you when you say it's the disparity of the solution he's giving and the thing he's asking from the from the citizens.
Yeah. It's more so like we are already in this situation where we haven't held the politicians accountable.
So now the only way to get rid of them is to kill them. But if in the future you keep asking questions you hold them accountable.
Like you don't really like the same people in positions of power if they had not if they have not kept their promises during their campaign then you vote for another party.
Right. So this is kind of like a solution for the modern day situation that we're in. But we can change that situation if we just help them accountable and ask questions.
So step one is kill everyone and then step two is ask questions. Yeah. No way.
Step one is like clean up the mess that you already made. OK.
Because if I was a citizen and I was asking questions and some politician like Cali or whatever it was like you know I'll give you 100 bucks to vote for me. That's way more tangible benefits than most other politicians.
That doesn't what he's saying doesn't prevent anyone from voting for Cali in the future.
Like another Cali. Yeah. They're like what do I get in the future. And he's like or what do I get if I vote for you. And he's like money. I'd be like sweet. But that's enough questions asked. Thank you.
It's like short term versus long term gratification. OK. But like they're going for people who are impoverished usually that's people who actually agree to vote buying.
Right. But he says if you he literally says freedom from poverty if you vote you'll get freedom from poverty. But that only will kind of happen if you vote for the guy that gives you money or something. I don't know how to save you from poverty.
So one of the things I have to address here the vote buying thing that they're showing here is not that overarching in politics.
It's happens in certain nooks and corners like you know like let's say like one area in one constitution. OK. They think that OK these are the people we can influence.
So it might it. So they say like there is a neck to neck competition with your opposition. Then you you know the swing areas and that area you address and then you buy the votes from them for them from them.
This this happens a lot of extortion happens that OK there are like this kind of criminal charges and charges against your local local guys doing this maybe during some protests maybe during some other things.
Now if you vote if so some villages they can really track down like what which village voted for whom because it's usually decided in unison usual and a lot of villages that in unison village vote for one party so they can really track down like who is the good one.
So so so they're like OK we can do that. But it's not an overarching theme in Indian politics that the vote buying is rampant.
Yeah what happens is like more is election campaign like marketing campaign and the people as a politician such as taking money for the running their campaign or getting their wealth from the corporates and then they're just giving back the corporates after they come to back to power.
And how they come to power is like lies deception and all these things. OK it's like a multitude of mechanisms that they keep this how they stay in the power.
I guess vote buying is not one thing. Yeah I'm not against vote buying. What do you mean. That's what I'm trying to say. I'm not against it. I don't think it's a bad thing. Yeah if you buy from everyone.
Because you get tangible benefits. I don't think that's bad. No but that completely derodes the idea of democracy because accountability is the heart of it. Right. So if it's just vote buying. You should vote for the guy that gives you the most.
No but ten thousand rupees is not going to change your situation. It might help you pay the bill for the month. But like at the end of the day if you vote politicians who have policies that would benefit you in the future.
All this is taken up by the government. Tell some starving guy do you want 100 bucks now or do you want some good policy that will affect your kids in the future maybe. But those are the questions you need people to ask.
Sure. No not the kids in the future is actually to be like you right now. That's what gonna get people moving. Right. Which is money right now. It's not like access to health care money right now. Right. It's access to health care.
It's access to money. It's all these things but they don't get this much money. So it's just like it's not that much money. They just get like the vote buying vote buying they just get like a meal.
Sure. No they get a hundred bucks. I mean according to Kali they get a hundred bucks. Like a huge party. That's fun. Stuff like that. Like it's not because they don't have that much money to give people.
Yeah. Then they will not have anything left. Well Kali was gonna give everyone 10,000 rupees. Yeah I don't think that's that's bad. OK. That's like a hundred bucks. Well he was using 80 percent from mafia money from Bain. Yeah because he has a huge money from Bain foreign underground weapon dealers and shit.
Yeah. OK. Anyway. That's not happening right now. We just we just don't put on tender on while buying like fighter plate playing anymore. We just give random people. That's that's that's the other side of corruption that's happened in India for a long time. Like buying like weapon purchase is one of the things that India had a history of corruption. That's normal.
Yep. I think so. That's how the whole. So they hang Kali. They kill him. Yeah. Yeah. That's about it. The bad person hung everyone happy. Yeah. Yeah. The corruption is solved. Yeah. Yeah. You hung the bad person. Right. That's the solution.
Correct. Is you hang the bad people. Yeah I agree. I agree. I agree. What are your final thoughts Winnie. My final thoughts. No I think this movie definitely addresses a lot of important issues. I think issues have been pretty rampant in India from the corruption especially but also the role of the private sector.
Right. We had that one scene where the businessmen are trying to encourage the politicians to do the vote buying and then they will invest infrastructure in the country. And even though they are aware of all the harm that it will cost to the country in terms of air pollution water whatever resources it's still kind of like it's OK because it'll generate like 10,000 jobs.
So I think you know I agree with your point to the degree that no matter who comes into positions of power the private sector holds most of the resources and the wealth and they will always be able to kind of manipulate or blackmail or just use money to be able to turn most people against any good policies that they intended to enact and most people would just turn to the dark side because that's what a lot of money and power does to you.
So it's like a short term solution. But yeah I definitely enjoyed the movie and all the theatrics and Shah Rukh Khan playing a double role was just kind of like the cherry on top.
Would you would you marry him at this point.
Him or his dad I'd probably go for his. Oh that's a good question.
They look about 10 years different from each other. So you prefer him playing his own dad.
Absolutely. I mean there was a scene where he played like there was a young Shah Rukh Khan. I don't know why they didn't just use Shah Rukh Khan to play his baby self as well. They could have just completed the tree.
That would have made more sense. And then we would have had a proper selection of who to date. They're holding baby baby Shah Rukh Khan up like like.
Yeah.
So you but you like older. No I don't. OK. So you go for younger share con.
Yeah go for the baby shark. No Adam had a father had a father or son. Which one do you go.
What are your final thoughts Nikki.
Oh so older. Yeah. OK cool.
My thoughts. Yeah I mean I wouldn't. I like this film. You didn't like the film.
You said it was a bad film. I didn't say it's a bad film. It's like I just showed you guys a film that didn't have any music numbers and anything and you guys wanted the full Bollywood experience and there was a trash involved trash term involved.
But I just chose this because it's a nice introduction to Bollywood. It has a decent storyline.
And I mean the overarching theme is good. A lot of action scenes. A lot of music numbers. The colorful gala spectacles of Bollywood.
So and the big the biggest megastar of Bollywood right now. So it's all in one package. So that's why I chose it. Yeah.
And then yeah I enjoyed it. Actually I enjoyed it watching with everyone and then having this conversation. Then like I was when I was just watching at home. Yeah of course.
And oh yeah by the way I have to tell you that because also like the way these films are used to be also enjoyed like in the theater.
Like I was saying the fans break out in dance when their hero is dancing like in the theater. So it is like a carnival thing.
It's a theme. It's not like cinema where you are engulfed by the cinema and you are quite there.
You are just a spectator and you just enjoy quietly in the with in unison with the other audience like no quietly like you know the art presented in front of you.
This is what like you shout you shout at the villain you you you whistle when the hero comes like you you dance when the dance number.
It's like a carnival where you enjoy the film and you also imagine yourself in the film like you know it's it's like a more of like a festival.
Yeah sense of enjoying film. It's very different verse like Western like the silence with everyone as you watch it's like communal and participatory.
Yeah I think I think he is right. I think this film is a great way to introduce anybody who's interested in in in Bollywood or like just getting to know the immense star power.
Yeah I think I think that's great. I really honestly I think it's this star star generation is going to die down because these are these three people who four people are the last mega star next next up are superstar.
They never become like a star like that. There is no mega star after these three big cons.
They're all like superstar and also like from the latest generation. You can barely see anyone who is even a like a superstar.
There are actors right now. Yeah, it's the same in Hollywood. Yeah. I'll just getting older and there's no one replacing them. Yeah.
But I think in Bollywood these mega stars are still putting out really good films like Joe Juan whereas in Hollywood they're kind of slowly dying out a little bit.
Bollywood doesn't have that thing that much of suspension of this belief. Well I think also just just just Indian cinema is still resting on like star power still though it's not franchises yet.
The American they replace stars with franchise. Yeah. Indian cinema still just has stars and coasting on that. Yeah. We don't have franchise. Yeah. Yeah.
No, no, not at all. We haven't never built up a franchise to be honest. As long as you don't have franchises it has to be based off star power. So that will remain as long as you need some way to sell tickets just by a poster.
So if you don't have like a comic book superhero on it's got to be a star. Wait you said no franchises. But what was that action movie? It's like a bunch of movies like Priyanka Chopra was in it. One of them.
Grish right. Yeah. The superhero film. Yes. It was like there was like three four movies. Yeah. Yeah. But that's an attempt to franchise but it kind of died down. It didn't work out properly.
It was a hit for a bit but like it's not it didn't continue. I mean and it's also one of its own. Like it wasn't copied. Like it wasn't reused. The model was not reused later on. So it means like it died down. Yeah.
But the hero was based off the stars like not an existing IP right. No no no. So they base. So that's the thing. You have to have like existing IP that people don't associate with an actor to be able to pull that off.
True. Cool. All right. Yep. Anyway. Thanks for thanks for listening to Fear of Stairs. You want to close this out Winnie. No I don't know. We didn't really talk about the closing. I don't know how we're going to close it. I guess we'll figure this out in later episodes.
Thank you for tuning in to the first episode of Fear of Stairs. Join us again next week for another blockbuster hit. Bye. Bye mom. Awesome.