Baby John Review: A Sluggish South Remake That Misses the Mark

First things first : Bollywood needs to stop these needless South movie remakes. Especially if they are going to be frame-by-frame adaptations with zero value add. We know what happened to Shehzada last year. Baby John, a remake of Vijay's Theri (2016), will most likely go the same way!!

As it is, Theri was no great shakes, relying solely on Vijay's star power. Here, Varun Dhawan fitting in to his character, lacks the physicality as well as super stardom to pull off such an action packed mass role. Not that he's awful, Varun tries hard and is sincere as ever. It's just that the character of a senior cop in a revenge mode just doesn't suit him.

The villain is equally miscast. Yes, Jackie Shroff, our very own Jaggu Dada, as the human trafficking ganglord appears too old and tired in front of Varun. Calling him an "old eagle" is just not done as it's the casting fault. To his credit, Jaggu still makes the best of the half baked character he gets...

The plot is vintage '80s; the brave honest policewala hero pitted against a gangster, gangster kills his family, cop leaves his job and migrates elsewhere until the gangster traces him there. You know how it will all end. At two hours forty minutes run time, Baby John is half hour too long with four random songs popping up one after another in the first ninety minutes itself. And we haven't even seen the interval card yet!!

Both, screenplay as well as editing are deliriously sluggish till the interval point, making you want to check your phone messages many a time. Ooff!!

On the positive side, Wamiqa Gabbi impresses in a short yet effective role. Keerthy Suresh, the main heroine, makes a confident Bollywood debut. Above all, the action sequences are superbly choreographed. In fact, the plot points appear to be a filler to showcase those fights...

Baby John might have worked if it had some true blue superstar at its helm. Probably the same dude who appears in the cameo at the end. Aha!!

Ratings on some key aspects* :
1. Acting : 3/5
2. Direction : 2/5
3. Music : 2/5
4. Story, Screenplay and Dialogue : 2/5
5. Cinematography : 4/5
6. Editing : 2/5
7. Costume Design : 3.5/5
8. Special Effects and VFX : 2.5/5
9. Action : 4/5
10. Production Quality : 3.5/5

#SNRating for #BabyJohn : 2 stars out of 5.

- Sumeet Nadkarni

* - The overall film rating is not a simple average of all ratings on key aspects but a weighted average of the ratings where some crucial aspects (like direction, acting, story and screenplay etc) are assigned more weightage than others.

Also Read: Get Ready for High-Octane Action with Baby John – Taster Cut Out Now!