Baaji Movie Review

Don’t Bet on this!

Movie Review By Raju Shanbhag

I want to meet the person who said “patience is a virtue.” I want to tell him that it’s bloody easy to create adages; bloody easy. But it’s a whole other game to put what you have written into practice. Let him see just one show of Baaji from beginning to end and then repeat this adage to the world; or to the people who are being led into the theatre like lambs into the slaughterhouse.

Patience, is sometimes is not a virtue. It’s a duty for reviewers.

I don’t know whether it’s the effect of debutant director S Shidlaghatta Srinivas’ visual magic or the fear of watching this classic with only 5 people in the theatre; but you will start dreaming about the climax right from the first frame. You start dreaming about the things you can do outside, and the things that you could have been doing right now.

Baaji is the story of Baaji (yes, that’s Alok’s name in the film) who doesn’t mind betting on anything for a kick. On the other side of the town, there is Rangayana Raghu, whom we see these days every Friday with similar mannerisms, betting his daughter on a cricket bet and losing her to Kishor, a Mumbai underworld don (you have to see the film to believe this). The daughter apparently doesn’t like this (apparently, because her expressions always remain the same!) and runs away from home. She then comes in contact with Alok, who is good enough to convey what he is feeling. Both meet, feelings are conveyed, fights are fought, songs are sung.

And then comes the interval! I told you, simply writing the adages is easy, practicing them is hard.

Kashinath, who totally understood that he didn’t exactly have an arresting screen presence, chose films that at least suited his appearance. Double meaning or not, they were at least different from the kind of films that hit the screens in those times. But when it comes to Alok, he fights, he dances, he sings songs about why our country is the best with a flag in his hand, and not all of them fit perfectly to his lanky appearance and limited acting skills.

But even then, when it comes to watching Rani, another debutant who maintains a horrendous standard when it comes to acting, Alok almost looks like a reincarnation Nasiruddin Shah! Rani urgently needs a crash course in acting, or at least on how to be comfortable in front of camera. It seems that the director, who himself is in need of a crash course on directing, hasn’t given her that.

Veterans such as Anant Nag and Rangayana Raghu constantly remind us that this is a film after all, not a drama being staged on a high school annual day. Music and cinematography are there because they just need to be there. On a whole Baaji is a film that should have been in the cans forever.

All the five people in the theatre shared the same feeling with me. You know, challenges always bring people together.