It’s like watching your favorite comedy on TV – everything’s contrived to make you guffaw in sync with the laughter track in the background. But who puts a song about booties (no, not a cute word for shoes) and shows Jacqueline twerking her own in a film meant for children? That’s not fine.
The film reaches its high point in the first few minutes. In stark contrast of what is to follow, a minimal, black and white 2D sketch animation makes beautiful use of time and space to tell us how we are destroying our environment and therefore ourselves. A boy is chopping a tree with his axe. He manages to fall one, and it sets of a domino effect – falling other trees, which in turn break a dam, the water destroying transmission towers, that fall buildings, that destroy bridges – a cascading effect that comes back to the forest, falling all trees, the last one about to fall on the boy. The entire animation is moving from left to right till this point. A Flying Jatt swoops in to sweep the day at this point, and props up the falling tree, saving the boy. It creates a reverse domino effect, running from right to left, undoing all the damage and coming back to the boy and our super hero. It’s a simple, powerful idea and so very effective.
For the next 2 hours, the director Remo and his writers stumble around explaining the same idea in a far more clumsy, over the top, and often silly manner. A Flying Jatt is made for kids, and it acts out like a child’s play most of the time. The story is seen in plain black and white, the plot turns are obvious and predictable, and the ending even more so. Which is perfectly fine, because the kids are going to have a blast watching Tiger and Amrita Singh cook up a whole lot of silliness to make you laugh. It’s like watching your favorite comedy on TV – everything’s contrived to make you guffaw in sync with the laughter track in the background. But who puts a song about booties (no, not a cute word for shoes) and shows Jaqueline twerking her own in a film meant for children? That’s not fine.
There are some charmingly funny moments, like the sequence where they try and figure out the kind of super powers Tiger possesses. The tongue in cheek humor laughing at a bumbling super hero is entertaining, and for the part it plays in the film, lifts it off the ground briefly. Otherwise, the film mostly borrows liberally from superhero templates, but does a tacky job plugging them in. The production is b-grade when it comes to VFX and superhero fights; yet they go to the moon for the climax battle, as if the world was not enough. The film is more than a little patronizing towards the Sikh community, but it is done with intent and good heart, and cannot be judged.
Tiger Shroff’s incredible athleticism is the only credible element in the film. He will probably never be an actor, but he sure as hell can pull off a superhero suit. Otherwise, there is little else to look out for in A Flying Jatt.
Hindi, Comedy, Action, Color