Bawaal Review - Thousands Of Films On The World War, But None Was So Irrelevant

Bawaal Review : Nitesh Tiwari collaborates with Sajid Nadiadwala for the second time with Bawaal, starring Varun Dhawan and Janhvi Kapoor. By far, this has to be Nitesh Tiwari's most irrelevant and non-commercial film ever made. The reason for dropping it on OTT must be appreciated since our masses, or even half of the classes, are unaware of Major World War II chapters. Thanks to our great educational system, which has kept the World War chapters mandatory for us even though our lives are least affected by them. Would European and American education systems make Indian History mandatory in their schools? I highly doubt so. But here we have a filmmaker who decided to use World War II conflicts to arrange his Indian love story with an Indian couple who have nothing to do with it and seem more disturbed by the World War events than the foreigners whose ancestors have actually suffered from them. Logic killed me there.Bawaal is a fancy title for a Hindi movie, and so the lead character has to be fancy anyway. We have Ajju (Varun Dhawan), a history teacher who has been an average guy in every field throughout his life. But he has found a show-off layer to protect himself and has created an image even above what Ambani has in Lucknow. He is married to Nisha (Janhvi Kapoor), a beautiful and intelligent girl with a problem of epilepsy. Ajju's show-off dreams are shattered when he learns about Nisha's disease on the first day of marriage, and he decides to keep distance with her and not take her out to save his "image". Ajju's easy-going fake life comes into trouble when he slaps a student, who happens to be the son of an MLA. To save humiliation and create a new "mahol," Ajju takes off to Europe to visit all the important places of World War II events and teach students online with practical knowledge. As expected, Ajju and Nisha come closer during this trip, but is all gonna be well or not?It amazed me that Bawaal is written by four people (Nitesh Tiwari, Piyush Gupta, Nikhil Mehrotra, and Shreyas Jain), and none of them looked into the basic sense of writing the main protagonist. If a person doesn't have knowledge of history, then how did he become a teacher? He was supposed to have a Degree, right? Or was just the talkie-talk enough to get a job? All of a sudden, a student asks his teacher about the gas chamber, when throughout all the previous lessons he knew that they were not studying at all. And how was Ajju supposed to carry on with no knowledge as a history teacher anyway? Before and after.. I can understand if he has fooled the students and chapri guys on the street with his stories of IAS, Army, and what not, but how can a group of well-educated teachers have a discussion over the same topic, who are supposed to have passed B. Ed. Exams? Nisha is a graduate and an independent girl, but right after marriage she is turned into an illiterate housewife. Why? This usually happens in all our daily soaps. In one scene, she says, "No boy has ever asked me for a date/drink?" Why, madam? You didn't walk with a board of epilepsy, right? How would any guy know then? You are beautiful, and are intelligent, but can a secret epilepsy outrun these visible facts for college boys?After this wrong presentation of the lead characters, Bawaal soon flies to Europe. Ajju cannot understand English beyond Hi, hello, how are you, and good morning, and yet he planned to go alone. Geee, man. Soon, we are in the war zone, as the audio clip does more damage than the award-winning history books, movies, and YouTube videos that have portrayed these horrible events over the years. The Ohama beach battle has been seen a few times on screen, including Steven Spielberg's classic "Saving Private Ryan," but how did it affect our Ajju Bhaiya is quite out of my mind. I mean, he must have listened to many stories in his life, be it in school, college, or from his parents; did he see traumatic visualisations like this every time? On a funny note, foreigners walking on the same beach and listening to the same audio clip are less bothered than Indians. The Diary of Anne Frank has come on stage, on the big screen, and on TV multiple times (with George Stevens 1959 version giving it the best treatment, IMO), but it never felt so rough to me as it did in Bawaal. You make us feel that your characters are now deeply affected by Anne Frank's tragedy, but the next moment you have them in sexy clothes and involved in a romantic ballad. Such a terrible line-up of events in the screenplay. I guess people should stop visiting Auschwitz Gas Chambers now since it can lead to mental breakdowns and fits. In one scene, Ajju compares his fake image to that of Hitler, calling out that people don't remember your fake image by looking at a car parking place where Hitler died. This is to tell us that people don't remember Hitler now, but then how the hell do you know that he was buried or died there? Even not having a tomb is a tale in itself. Of course, this is a very intellectual subject to discuss, and I don't think Bawaal should be invited to the round table since it attempts a rough and brief study of WW II for typical Indian audiences, who are not at all interested in knowing the details. Like the headline says, thousands of films have been made on World War in Hollywood, German, French, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, and other foreign language cinemas, but none of them were so irrelevant as Bawaal, and the blame goes to the writers.Bawaal has Varun Dhawan in a heroic role, who later drops all the heavy stuff. Yes, Varun Dhawan is a fine actor, but only in Badlapur and the October zone, where the character graph takes complete control. Not something like Bawaal, which takes him to the Coolie No. 1 zone for half the time and makes him a contrary guy the rest of the time. Yes, Janhvi Kapoor can suit the role, but it has to be in the Dhadak or Mili zone, where she actually looks like the characters she is playing. Watching her play a wife, and such a mild one, is not at all appreciated, while her voice tone needs a lot of cleaning. And where was the chemistry we needed for this so-called romantic drama, which it hardly is? Bawaal hardly gives a chance to supporting actors, even if they are highly talented. Manoj Pahwa and Mukesh Tiwari are known faces, yet they get so little to do, while Anjuman Saxena, Vyas Hemang, Prateek Pachori, Shashie Vermaa, and child artists pass on without any impressive scenes.A big thank you to Mithoon for a melodious "Tumhe Kitna Pyaar Karte" that stays with you. Other songs don't. Mitesh Mirchandani's cinematography is okay, and Charu Shree Roy's editing lacks moments in the second half. Dear Nitesh Tiwari, I almost fought with some of my friends when I called you "the next big thing in Bollywood after Rajkumar Hirani," and they were like, "bro, that's a big Statement". I hope they don't see Bawaal and call me and make fun of me now. I'd rather take that fun on myself if things are going to be better for you in the future. Chillar Party, Bhoothnath Returns, Dangal, and Chhichhore—such a nice filmography—and then comes Bawaal, which is not even close to the weakest film of them all. We expect better from you, Nitesh sir, because you have only set that standard for us. Bawaal had to be that faith-breaking film from Nitesh Tiwari, like Befikre is for Aditya Chopra. The basic plot is just so wrong, I believe. Why would India be affected by World War II when we are not even aware of its impact on our Freedom fight? Take the same story to our history, such as 1857's Battle, Bengal's partition, the Jalianwala Massacre, August Kranti, the 1946 riots, or better yet, take it to Lucknow's history, where your film is set, and see how much better it would look. Overall, an expected debacle from Prime Video and NGE, but what was wrong with Nitesh Tiwari?