![]() The devotees in my theatre were in throes of ecstasy. In that opening scene with the mummified Shah Rukh, his shadow is projected on the statue of a local god. ![]() And sometimes, you want to treat the theatre like a temple and step inside simply to worship your star. Sometimes, you just want something to keep playing on screen while munching on popcorn and looking at your phone. Not everyone goes to the theatre to make sense of narrative arcs and character arcs and marvel at set pieces and performances. The "mass" movie is the grown-up equivalent of the colourful, hyper-cut animated shorts you'd play for your kid in the car to keep them occupied. But (again), where Pathaan and Gadar 2 (except for the comical last half-hour) were proper films, Jawan is what I call "a cartoon for undemanding adults". The action hero really seems to be back in Hindi cinema, after Pathaan and Gadar 2 and now Jawan. ![]() We get a sensational silhouette – bandages flying, the sky streaked with lightning. Just like an amnesiac gets his memory back (at the end) through the sound of a gun, this mummified Shah Rukh is revived by these bullet sounds. He makes "mass" movies that showcase the hero, and few hero-showcasing scenes have topped the one in Jawan, where an ailing, bandaged Shah Rukh Khan is roused by the sound of bullets at the beginning of the film. Atlee's Jawan could have been a similar masala movie – but then, with the exception of Bigil, Atlee does not do coherent masala movies. In other words, we had a screenplay that entertained us by telling us an organic story, whose every emotional beat rose from a central idea. Everything – the Dimple Kapadia character, the reason the villain became a villain – was tied to the nation. In the same year, Shah Rukh Khan has given us a masala movie with Pathaan and a "mass" movie with Jawan.
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