By now, it’s all too familiar. There is a moment towards the climax when a few cops just smile and tap their foreheads. No words required. It is the quintessential audience gratifying moment. Everyone, from the cops to the criminals to the audience knows what that means. It’s a trademark Singham gesture followed by his war cry of having lost it… “AATA MAAJHI SATAKLI..”
This honest policewalah with danda, Baji Rao Singham is serious. That makes him sexy. More so when he takes off his cop’s khakhi wardi and reveals an ordinary baniyan. The righteous anger in the eyes is cooler than Salman’s hairless six-pack wonder. The tension in the body is intense. The muscles are bigger. And when he loses that patience and lets out his Maratha war cry, he is Ajay Devgn, the sexy Singham. The accompanying theme soundtrack, “Singham….Singham..” makes doubly sure you are as charged as him and his band of baniyanboys.
‘Singham Returns’ maintains the USP of the original Singham, that is, the unity amongst cops. It starts by rolling off statistics on how in a city teeming with x crore population, there are only y ‘000 cops recruited to look after the city. This sets the tone for the grim and tough job on their hands.
No surprises in the plot here. Except that one politician is a good guy (Anupam Kher). The bad guy is a Babaji (Amole Gupte) who at public gatherings, wears white dhoti and at home, T-shirts sporting ‘Dope Chef’. Both run a coalition party. They meet and have a typical showdown, spouting lines heard a million times over. Result: Kher’s life is in danger.
Honest and sexy Singham is around to protect Kher. He can run, shoot, duck bullets like a model walking the ramp. We see him doing what he does best. He flies sideways into the screen, in slow motion, a gun in hand, blasting off every bad guy in sight. He blazes ahead, rifle in hand, braving bullet shots. Not one grazes him. He is, after all, the hero, “jisme hai dum, faqt Baji Rao Singham”.
Obviously, the director, Rohit Shetty, is taking no risks here. He sticks to ‘unite all cops’ formula and even adds more cop characters to cheer for. There is also an impoverished dead cop’s widow who is willing to wash utensils to make ends meet. Then, there is the bereaved mother so that sexy Singham can put his mighty hand on her head and say lines that cannot fail to touch the audience.. “AAI SHAPATH”. You just wish there was more of the Marathi element which gets relegated to brief parents’ scenes in a Maharashtra village.
The limelight in aamchi gaon, shines on Singham’s love interest, trying hard to be a Marathi mulgi (Kareena Kapoor). She makes kohl eyes at the Maratha man, frolics around in pretty long skirts and a wristful of silver bangles(nice styling) and follows him, driving an auto rickshaw. Certainly, Miss kohl eyed K deserves a better use of her unstoppable vivacious charm.
Now that the villains, the romance, guns, deafening dhishums, two Marathi dialogues and a marching band of boys in khakhi and banyans are in place, Rohit Shetty cannot go wrong.
No disappointments, no surprises. Faqt Baji Rao Ajay Devgn, the macho, sexy Singham.
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