Salman's Tubelight fails to switch on

Year after year, Salman releases a movie on Eid and earns hundreds of crores. His last Eid release Sultan, or the one before that Bajrangi Bhaijaan won hearts and created a storm at the box office. But, alas, his latest Tubelight fails to impress.

Briefing the story, A brother goes to fight a war while the other brother waits. Oh wait, I said I'll brief it, but I didn't. I told you the whole plot. But, sadly, that's pretty much it. There's nothing more to add to the story. Unlike what was expected after Bajrangi Bhaijaan, the director-actor duo fails to even come near to recreate the magic. Just having an innocent-looking Salman Khan, a little kid and tension between two countries doesn't make it near as good as the iconic.

The movie was supposed to be character driven, not story driven. The plot begged the director to make the movie high on emotions. But guess what, even for most of the emotional parts of the film, the heart sits unaffected like meh! (And, trust me, I'm a guy who gets too emotional while watching movies.)

The film also fails to crack jokes. You hardly laugh on the jokes (which are repeated a thousand times), and you hardly connect to the characters. Also, it was supposed to have a message to keep faith and have believe in ourselves. The makers even fail to convey that properly. The movie revolves around “Kya tumhe yakeen hai? Haa mujhe yakeen hai.” The director had to do only one thing, ie to emotionally connect with the audience, and this time, Kabir Khan fails big time.

The Script is weak. There are many scenes which had nothing to do with the plot, and felt forced. The Dialogues fail to impress. A single dialogue is repeated a thousand times, even when it doesn't have any context to what's going on, hence looses its charm. There are 3 dialogues which are repeated indefinitely. “Kya tumhe yakeen hai?”, “Zip band karle” and “Goo nhi Gou”. Editing is really bad. Few scenes are cut out of a sudden when you expect something to happen, and few scenes have nothing to do with the film. A character goes away for a few days. Why? No idea. How does it affect the story? It doesn't, because the character has left behind notes to say all he had to. (Even few of those notes just eats up screentime and have nothing to do with the film.)

There's a plot twist. And there's again. And just one more. The problem comes when the twist is the same everytime. And so are the ways they are revealed. So, yeah, the story with very high potential wasn't written well either.

As I said earlier, the direction is simply bad. Kabir Khan first fails to make us love the brothers and admire the love between them, and then it fails to make us cry with them. THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE AN EMOTIONALLY DRIVEN FILM BUT WHERE THE HECK ARE EMOTIONS?

Acting. Let's talk about the good side first. Om Puri, sadly one of his last films, was amazing as always. The little boy and Zhu Zhu also did a great job. Zeeshan Ayyub was fabulous. But, sadly, the main leads were disappointing. Sohail Khan doesn't know the A of Acting. Salman Khan has improved his acting skills a lot during Bajrangi and Sultan, and we can clearly see that he is trying his best. But, Salman wasn't made for the role. The role required someone younger. Hritik Roshan maybe. But not Salman. His sad emotions looked fake, because he couldn't act being sad and being mentally slow at the same time. Infact, you might laugh a little when he's crying on screen. Along with direction, this might also be a reason due to which the audience couldn't emotionally connect to the film. But, I do appreciate that how Salman did a role like this, since he's mostly known for his macho-ism on screen. For the first time, Salman is the guy who gets bullied by others. Its nice that he's trying to do different kinds of roles too, along with the kind of roles he is known for to keep his die hard fans satisfied. Not to forget, Shahrukh Khan has a cameo in the film. Firstly, Shahrukh looks really not-good in those 10 minutes. That scene does have a significance in the movie. That scene makes conveying the message a little tough, by introducing a weird and embarrassing step which signifies yakeen in movie. The step is so embarrasing, that despite bhai doing it, it wasn’t left out as a trendmark among his fans.

Also, there are no beautiful locations we expected from the film, as it made headlines that Salman Khan is shooting in Leh and Manali etc. But, there are just 5 total locations in the most of the​ movie, except few small scenes. Infact, till the very last scene, Salman doesn't even keep a step out of his villiage.

At times, when the movie is not engaging, the songs help you. But, the album too is just average. Though the songs do not interfere the pace of the movie and are pleasant to hear, they aren't what you would listen on loops. But they indeed are the best part in the movie, which helps you not leave the theatre out of boredom.

There are several flaws, several problems with the film. But, even after all those, its watchable and somewhat enjoyable. But, Salman's movies are sold for his on-screen charm, which is missing here. 

I'll predict the box office collection to be 200-210Cr, thanks to Salman's stardom.

This summer, unfortunately, the only Bollywood movie to have recieved mostly positive reviews is Hindi Medium. So, I guess its time that we adapt Syska LED lights instead of Tubelights. 

Rating: 2.5/5 Stars

Also Read: Movie Review: Dangal | Dangal V Sultan complete analysis