Another official remake from Karan Johar’s production house with the remake specialist director Karan Malhotra, BROTHERS tries hard to create the same impact generated by English action film WARRIOR (2011). But in the process goes on adding many unwanted, forced elements in its first half diluting the end-result that could have been much better with a more focused vision and quality writing.
Unexpectedly beginning on a slower note, BROTHERS is a big disappointment before the intermission since the director considers his audience still stuck in somewhere around 80-90s who would need a long family detailing with the same old concepts of the other woman, a drunkard husband, a soutela bhai (step-brother) and a deadly accident before moving on to the basic theme. So we have a good one hour lost in something which no one wished to see in a film that was boldly projected as a deadly sports movie full of worth watching action in the ring. In fact the first half of BROTHERS (partially reminding you of Manmohan Desai-Amitabh’s NASEEB) is full of all forced progressions where apart from the family trouble we also have the usual songs, romance and an item number too displaying the sick mentality of the makers quite clearly. Plus one can also easily notice the imbalanced life-description of both the brothers, where the elder one gets a better mileage (being the bigger star) and the younger one is made to play a much weaker character as compared to the original script and treatment of the English film.
But here, specifically coming back to the inclusion of an item number I would like to raise a socially relevant question to the makers with reference to the fan following of these famous fighters of the sport in India.
“Every socially aware person in the country (as well as abroad) having kid boys in the family very well knows that these fighters of WWF, WWE, RAW and their best selling digital games are actually more famous among the boys in the age group of 8-15. So it was pretty understood that the film will be mainly followed and watched by the kids along with their parents (having a U/A certificate).
Now even after knowing the fact, what kind of ailing mentality forced them to add a typical item song featuring Kareena Kapoor doing all those vulgar body movements and striptease in the film (much more vulgar than Chikni Chameli) remains out of my understanding. Not sure whether this was an idea of Karan Johar or Karan Malhotra. But it was indeed an outcome of a highly confused mindset or from the one who simply wishes to focus on the box office returns or personal relationships but not the target viewers."
Moreover the poor first half also makes you think about the substandard writing repeatedly. For instance I would love to know where in Mumbai are these fighter hubs actually (always had this question while watching NASEEB too) and what kind of school hires a teacher with big tattoos all over his body clearly visible to the students. In addition I personally have never been comfortable watching characters talking with their father or mother in ‘Tu, Tera, Tuney’ lingo disrespectfully.
Anyway if you simply ignore or forget the inferior story progression of BROTHERS in its first half then it isn’t that bad remake in its concluding part, as post intermission it strictly follows the path shown by its original and adds some good Indian insertions that work perfectly (like hitting the father in front of the son & a peppy number running in the backdrop during the wins). So where its initial part fails to make any kind of emotional connect with the viewers, the final hour somehow finds a decent grip mainly due to the impressive training sequences and individual fights of both the brothers in their various rounds providing the much awaited excitement, thrill and action to the restless audience.
The film has an average soundtrack (surprisingly coming from KJO’s production house) which was not at all required in the first place. But still it has one fine love song and a catchy anthem, not properly used in the fight sequences. However the impressive cinematography and action together try hard to provide the much needed lift to the film in its final hour. But again here too a highly uneven and ineffective background score keeps pulling it back just at the right moments, when an intelligently chosen piece or an exciting baseline was actually needed the most. Besides, the editing could easily have made the film shorter by 10-12 minutes, avoiding the prolonged sequences in the first half and the repetitive ones in the second.
In the cast ensemble, it’s actually Jackie Shroff who scores the maximum even before Akshay and Sidharth. Especially watch out for him in the finale and in the scene when he gets the sight of his grand-daughter for the first time. Certainly a strong contender for ‘Best Supporting Actor’ nomination in all the key award functions next year. Interestingly Nick Nolte also won few reputed nominations for playing the same role in the original film WARRIOR.
Akshay Kumar as the elder brother does complete justice to his role of a son, husband, father, teacher and a tough fighter together. He displays a fine balance playing the various dimensions of his character excelling in the fight & training sequences in particular. Sidharth Malhotra on the other hand, holds himself strong in front of Akshay and Shroff and delivers a matured, praiseworthy performance despite having the weakest role in terms of writing. And adding a bit of nostalgia, the two brothers standing in front of each other in the boxing stance reminded me of JOHNY MERA NAAM’s climax with Dev Anand and Pran playing the brothers.
In the supporting cast, Jacqueline Fernandez is decent as the simple wife and Shefali Shah once again shines in her small role. Ashutosh Rana, Kiran Kumar and Raj Zutshi are just fine, whereas Kareena Kapoor seems to be of no use opting for such kind of item numbers as a low-grade dancer doing a striptease.
In all, informing the viewers about a new form of sport titled MMA (Mixed Martial Art), BROTHERS could have been a much better Hindi sports movie if it had its focus right on the sport and not all those forced inclusions. So you can give it a skip if you are not a big fan of action or ring fights. But the viewers interested in this particular sport form and free style action would mostly enjoy the second half of the movie as a one-time watch alone and nothing else.
Ratings : 2.5 + 0.5 / 5 (with the additional 0.5 just for Jackie Shroff’s emotional performance)
