Baby John Movie Review Synopsis:
BABY JOHN is the story of a protective father. John D’Silva (Varun Dhawan), a restaurateur, stays in Alappuzha, Kerala with his daughter Khushi (Zara Zyanna). He dotes on her and is bringing her up with the right values. John forms a bond with Khushi’s teacher Tara (Wamiqa Gabbi). Tara takes John’s help, without his knowledge, when she rescues a girl and approaches the cops. John is aghast when he learns about Tara’s actions due to his past with the police force. A complaint is filed against a dreaded henchman, Boss (Jaffer Sadiq). Assuming that John complained to the police and that he’s a common man, Boss and his men attack him. But John turns out to be a beast. He finishes them off ruthlessly. Tara sees him attacking the goons and learns that he’s none other than Satya Verma, who was once the DCP and the husband of Dr. Meera (Keerthy Suresh). But his confrontation with Nanaji (Jackie Shroff) proves to be a turning point in his life. Hence, he decides to leave the force and live as a common man. What happens next forms the rest of the film.
Baby John Movie Story Review:
Atlee’s story is massy but also a bit outdated. Kalees’s screenplay tries to rise above the plot and is infused with mass moments. However, the writing could have been better. Sumit Arora’s dialogues add to the mass touch.
Kalees’s direction is commercial. The film is mounted on a huge scale and it has been handled appropriately. The bond shared by the father and the daughter is adorable while the romantic track also has its moments. But the best is reserved for the mass elevation scenes. The scenes that are memorable are John attacking the goons at night, Satya and Meera’s first meeting, Satya searching for Amba (Snigddha Suman) and what happens thereafter. The pre-interval block is when the film goes on another level and it’ll be greeted with whistles and claps. Post-interval, Satya’s meeting with the parents and the shootout at his residence stand out. The scene of Bhima Rane (Shrikant Yadav) and the North Eastern kid is well thought out.
On the flipside, BABY JOHN comes too late in the day as it gives a déjà vu of SIMMBA [2018], JAWAN [2023] etc. The execution is overall satisfactory but in some places, it’s haphazard. The product placement of Center Fresh and Astral Pipes is quite in-your-face. But the biggest issue is that of the writing. BABY JOHN is a remake of THERI, which arrived 8 years ago. A lot has changed since then in terms of tastes and trends and Atlee should have aligned the script accordingly. Moreover, the hero vs villain equation is not convincing. Usually, the villain needs to be so powerful that the audience should wonder how the hero would defeat him. But in BABY JOHN, the hero becomes all-powerful once he harms Nanaji big time and doesn’t face consequences from the police department or the government. Nana takes revenge much later. But by then, it becomes clear that Satya can finish Nanaji, whenever he wants. This aspect severely impacts the goings-on.