Shah Rukh Khan’s National Film Award for his performance in the questionable Jawan is a laughably mistimed attempt to make amends.
They didn’t give it to him when he actually deserved it for Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas and Ashutosh Gowariker’s Swades. So the jury, in all its collective wisdom, got guilt pangs on behalf of all the jury members in the past 32 years who bypassed SRK (not that he deserves to be honoured for most of his performances).
It reminds me of R. D. Burman who didn’t win any awards for his music in Amar Prem or Kati Patang, but got honoured for a relatively mediocre soundtrack in Sanam Teri Kasam.
There is a time and place for everything. Shah Rukh’s Jawan was not the opportunity for an award. He himself would agree with that.
Jawan is a bit like dipping your feet into a slushy toxic pond. You know it will sully you indelibly. But you can’t help it. Shah Rukh Khan plays father and son, told apart by the grey hair and gruff demeanour of the elder Khan.
In Jawan the action is designed to make Shah Rukh Khan look many sizes larger than life. Please don’t mind. In both the father and son avatar he gets juicy SRK-type lines and a lineup of delectable ladies at his beck and call. In fact, there is a whole ladies’ jail where Shah Rukh is the jailer.
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Director Atlee has studied the fine print of the manual on how to make a SRK masala film. He gives the audience uninterrupted episodes of Shah-nomics ranging from virulent vigilantism to parenting a fatherless little girl who insists he marry her mother played by Tamil cinema’s ‘Lady Superstar’ Nayanthara, who seems lost in the bedlam.
Oh yes, there are other ladies serving as Azad Rathore’s soldiers in a rogue army that thinks it can mend all the ills of our society with bullying tactics. The film’s heart bleeds and cries for us Indians, victims of an irredeemably corrupt administration.
But the solution offered is seriously anarchic. Not that anyone cares. As long as SRK gets to pound the corroded system with his bare hands, all is well with the world.
So the question: why give the National Award for a performance that, at best, plays to the galleries?
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