Bhubaneswar: The Varun Dhawan starred much hyped Baby John has hit the silver screens across the country on Christmas Day. But the film has opened with a low occupancy of around 21% on a holiday which is not a good omen for the film makers.
The film directed by Kalees and written by Atlee is produced by Jio Studios, A For Apple Studios and Cine1 Studios.
The film with UA certification from Censor board is a remake of Atlee directed 2016 Tamil film of Vijay Sethupathi’s Theri.
The film portrays the story of a brave police office (DCP), Satya Verma (Varun Dhawan), who takes on Nana (Jackie Shroff) and his team of human traffickers. Salaman has a cameo role in this film.
THE PLOT
DCP Satya Verma, a very bold and upright police officer, had busted a gang who kidnap school-going girls to sell them after torturing with physical assault like rapes. During busting of the gang’s kidnapping module, he killed villain Nana’s (Jackie Shroff) rapist son and put Nana behind the bars.
Angered over this, after three years, Nana avenged the killing of his son by killing DCP’s wife Meera (Keerthy Suresh) and mother (Sheeba Chadda). The DCP and Meera has little daughter Khusi (Zara Zayann).
BIRTH OF JOHN
Following the killing of his wife and mother, DCP Satya quits the police force and settles down in a small town by concealing his identity by taking on the name of John.
The birth of John has been for the reason that Nana and his gang believed that DCP Satya and his daughter Khushi had also died along with his mother and wife.
John waited for a day take on Nana. And one day he did meet to avenge.
WHY FILM OCCUPANCY LOW?
The plot of the film shows this is not a mass entertainer. Moreover, Bollywood had seen 100s of films with a similar plot. The films plot sounds of late 80s or early 90s Hindi film.
As the films revolved around a gang involved in girl trafficking, with physical assault scenes like rapes quite often, very few movie goers will go to watch the movie as its refreshment value has been quite low.
For the simple reason explained above, the Varun Dhawan starred film had a low opening of Rs 8 cr and 21% occupancy on a holiday opening day.
EXPERTS RATING
As per senior film critic Komal Nahata, the film lacks in the following.
- Kalees’ screenplay is clichéd
- Besides its routineness, there are many other drawbacks of the screenplay.
- The emotional quotient is weak.
- Romance is as good as missing.
- The comic dose has fallen fallen flat.
- Varun Dhawan’s cool demeanour looks fake
- Above all, the screenplay is terrible.
- Sumit Arora’s dialogues are dull.
- Kalees’ direction is below the mark.
- His story narration fails to hold the audience’s attention or to engage them.
- Thaman S.’s music is not up to the mark.
- None of the songs is very popular.
800 CR IN SIGHT FOR PUSHPA 2?
Varun Dhawan’s Baby John has been the big release after Allu Arjun’s Pushpa 2 The Rule on Dec 5. The Allu Arjun starred movie between 20 –days had minted Rs 704 cr. The film on its 20th day grossed Rs 11.5 cr in Hindi.
Though on its 3rd Monday, the film collection has dropped by a whopping 56% from 2nd Sunday, it still seems going strong in Hindi. The Allu Arjun starred movie is still collecting in double digits.
With a high occupancy of over 42%, as per sacnik, in Hindi on Christmas Day, the films 21st day, the rule of Pushparaj in Hindi seems unchallenged after Baby John proved a big let down.
Given its high occupancy, and with the X-MAS and upcoming New Year celebration time on, senior journalist-cum-trade analyst Taran Adrash posted in social media – how Pushpa’s path to Rs 800 cr looked bump free.
But will Allu Arjun’s movie do the wonder? One has to wait till Jan 1, 2025.
