#BabyJohn Review

#BabyJohn

2024- Hindi 

Starring : Varun Dhawan, Keerthy Suresh, Wamiqa Gabbi , Rajpal Yadav and Jackie Shroff

Directed by Kalees

Plot : Bakery owner John D'Silva lives a peaceful life in Kerala with his beloved daughter, Khushi. However, his tranquil existence is disrupted when shadows from his past resurface. Forced to confront his buried secrets, John must reclaim his former identity as ACP Satya Verma to face the challenges that threaten his life and loved ones.

This is an Official Adaption of 2016 Tamil Blockbuster "Theri". 

Performance wise , Varun tries his best to meet the aura and swag of Vijay but somewhat achieves it here and there. His performance as John D'silva is great, but as ACP it needed someone even more fierce and serious. Keerthy Suresh in Samantha role exactly does what Samantha did but somewhat lacks the charm that Samantha carried. Wamiqa Gabbi plays Amy Jackson's role and surprisingly her role gets a new spin different from the original. Though it was underdeveloped sadly, the characterization felt better than Amy's original in Theri. Jackie Shroff plays Mahendran's Role and the role is overblown and changed into a Godfather kind off Gangster rather than portraying him as a Politician. While Jackie Dada does what he does , surprisingly it gives his character a new dimension and somewhat makes him a strong opponent. Rajpal Yadav in Motta Rajendran role does a fantastic job in both emotional scene and conedy scenes. Sheeba Chadda replacing Radhik's role plays a decent job. 

Technically, the film is strong. Thanks to wonderful visuals by Kiran Koushik. The frames were colourful and visually stunning. Music by Thaman , songs were great , BGMs were decent but unfortunately some places it was flat and couldn't really hype up the sequences. Editing by Ruben was pretty good. Decent VFX.

While everyone has seen Theri in its original language or dubbing version (Telugu,Kannada, Malayalam and Hindi itself) , the films scenes are very similar. The film is almost a frame to frame remake of Theri with some minor changes here and there to suit the North Audience. While largely main sequences remain unchanged , Three changes that make this remake completely different are : 1)The Character of Amy Jackson played by Wamiqa gets a new spin and the character is more than a school teacher 2) Mahendran's Role which is played Jackie Shroff gets a completely different role and arc which is a little bit different from the original version 3)The Post Credit scene where we get Salman Cameo and story continues makes the remake a little bit different.

Talking about the Negatives of the film , the film works as a frame to frame remake and does not even try to change anything new (except for the above mentioned points). It just works as a Dubbing film with Hindi Actors as even the dialogues seemed to be have copied directly from Tamil - Hindi using Google Translate . Also as mention already, Varun felt like a miscast in some portions as it was too heavy for him. Thankfully, there were to deviations or unwanted songs or anything but still that post credit scene felt unnecessary and the cameo felt forced just for the sake of star value.

Director Kalees, known for his previous work on Jiiva's KEE, takes the helm for this remake. He has made a commendable effort to preserve the essence of the original, successfully delivering a remake that stays true to its source without tarnishing its legacy. But that itself works as a negative for this film as it feels like a carbon copy without any changes . 

Overall: Baby John is a Decent remake that works a carbon copy of Theri. If you haven't seen Theri the film will completely work for you , but if you have seen Theri then you'll end up comparing each and every sequence which will either make you like or dislike this remake.

Rating : 2.75-3/5

Television Rights: Zee Cinemas

Digital Rights : Amazon Prime