Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan….Arrey Bhai , Hamari Jaan Matt Lo

Kisi Ka Bhai  Kisi Ki Jaan

 Rating: * ½

To call Bhaijaan’s latest Eid offering a movie would be  an insult to his superpowers as an entertainer. Salman Bhaijaan aims for a   lot more than mere entertainment. He  has a message of  one-ness and coolness for the populace, the  Salmaniacs who flock to his films not to see him act(God forbid) but to  witness a messianic presence  on the screen.

In  the first  ten minutes he makes a racist  joke  and endorses a  cola before  asking each of the baddies their family details.This is  not a  hero. This is  God on a bad-hair day.

Yes, miracles do happen, and Salman  Bhaijaan is  one  of them. His entry  into  the film is  a miracle  moment. He jumps from a roof , but only after  taking off  his  jacket and then  he puts  it on as  he lands  on the  ground below  where   his three brothers  Ishq(Raghav Juyal),  Moh(Jassi Gill) and Love(Siddharth Nigam) wait for him in collective  bhakti.

Yes, that is what the  three brothers are called.I  kid you not.  Ishq ,Moh and Love  love Sukoon(Shehnaaz Gill), Muskaan(Palak Tiwari) and Chahat(Vinali Bhatnagar). All six have nothing more to do except  hang around in the  background for  Bhaijaan’s  self laudatory fights . Every  few minutes someone  or the other reminds us  how great  Bhaijaan is.

Bhaijaan himself takes   a break  from the taandav  of  panegyrics to shower praise on Telugu star-actor  Venkatesh at one point in the   aimless  narration ,  for being a  great  family man , etc,.This, I suspect, is  Salman’s  way of thanking the  Telugu superstar for blindly agreeing to be  a part of  what is  basically  one  man’s  desire to self-pleasure  himself  in full public  view for two hours and twenty-two minutes.

Salman ‘Bhaijaan’ Khan  preens, smirks, blushes(in front of the  go-getting heroine Bhagya played by Pooja  Hegde trying desperately  to behave like Deepika Padukone in Chennai Express), roars(while  swooping down on the  villains) weeps(when Venkatesh  is  humiliated before the archvillain) and  finally  giggles when it’s time to tie  the knot. But not before  gallons of bloodshed in fights that are staged  so clumsily they look like a  mock-drill for a  village-level  wrestling competition.

The villains range  from Abhimanyu Singh and  Vijender Singh(both  trying to snarl their way through  ill-written  roles) to  South’s distinguished  actor Jagapathi Babu who plays some kind  of   a mentally deranged automaton on a vendetta spree.

Somewhere at the start of this  mirth and mayhem spree(the joke  goes on for  two hours  and  22 minutes)  Bhagyashree(Salman’s first heroine  from Maine Pyar Kiya) shows up with her real-life  husband whom she reverently refers  to as ‘Himalayji’(Salman  loves these pati-vrata type of women) and  their son Abhimanyu Dassani who seems to have  nothing better to do, also shows up.

I would like to remind director Farhad Samji(yes, there is  a director)  that Abhimanyu Dassani has a  sister. Leaving her out amounts to  gender discrimination.

 I am not sure  of why  they are  in the film or what their function is. The  first-half  is set in  a  busti where  every actor(including poor Satish kaushik in a disgraceful farewell role) screams  and mumbles ‘Bhaijaan’ every  few minutes. In the second-half Bhaijaan and  his brothers proceed to Hyderabad to save Venkatesh and his family(Bhoomika Chawla, Rohini Hattangadi,etc  all reduced to junior artistes).

But who  will save this catastrophic self-destructive travesty  of  megalomaniacal dimensions ? Kisi Ka  Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan is not just any bad  Bollywood product. It is especial  . It stars  Salman Bhaijaan. It  glorifies  his stardom to the point of shameless  hegemony. Every actor, and there are dozens and dozens , seems to be  in a competition for hamming. Our Bhai is not even part of the  competition. He  doesn’t even try to act. He  doesn’t need  to.