Pathaan is another entry to the YRF espionage universe, following Ek Tha Tiger (2012), Tiger Zinda Hain (2017), and War (2019), and it somehow manages to avoid being a cringe-fest.
The film begins with the Indian government revoking Article 370, which infuriates Pakistani Army General Qadir, who swears vengeance on India. As a result, he employs the mercenary organization Outfit X, led by Jim (John Abraham), who operates purely on a contract basis and has no ideology or agenda. Pathaan (Shah Rukh Khan), a RAW agent, establishes a small unit named Joint Operation and Covert Research (J.O.C.R.) with the assistance of his senior officer Nandini (Dimple Kapadia) and with the approval of the RAW joint secretary, Colonel Sunil Luthra (Ashutosh Rana). They discover that Outfit X is planning to target and attack India, and it is up to Pathaan to stop it. To get to Jim, Pathaan takes the help of Rubina Mohsin (Deepika Padukone), an ISI agent whose allegiance shifts from one side to another.
The structure of Pathaan’s screenplay is a direct copy of the Mission Impossible series, in which the villain is constantly two steps ahead of the hero, deceiving him and carrying out his nefarious intentions until the very end, at which point the hero somehow manages to win against all odds. Even that would have been OK, except the writing wastes far too much time on repeated scenes of Jim outsmarting and evading Pathaan, which becomes tiresome after a certain point. The movie would have benefited immensely from removing at least one action set piece.
The construction of a formidable villain in the form of Jim was the most striking aspect of this film. He is a former RAW agent who has gone rogue because of a tragic experience that has turned him into a ruthless renegade. John Abraham gives a career-best performance as Jim, a character whose objective is established early on and is never deviated from throughout the film. Abraham plays Jim with a level of chilling calm and intimidating danger, and he steals the show whenever he appears on the screen. As Alfred Hitchcock famously said, “The more successful the villain, the more successful the picture,” because a compelling adversary lifts the movie and reinforces the hero’s arc, giving the protagonist a renewed feeling of motivation to defeat or stop the bad guy at any cost, which is what happens in this film.
The action scenes in the movie produced mixed results. When it comes to combat scenes, the film excels thanks to its outstanding action choreography. I was pleasantly surprised and thrilled by the opening action sequence in Anand’s previous film, War (2019). In Pathaan, he raises the stakes and gives us at least three very well-done combat sequences, whether it is the opening action scene to introduce Shah Rukh Khan, the hand-to-hand combat scene with Khan and John Abraham, or the train sequence with Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan, who appears in a cameo in this movie. However, when Anand tries to wow with massive action set-pieces, the film falls flat. There is a scene where Pathaan is chasing Jim through the air while wearing a jetpack, which looks ludicrous on the big screen. In another sequence, Pathaan and Rubina are suspended in mid-air by a rope while attempting to infiltrate a highly protected facility to steal something called “Raktbeej,” which also felt unconvincing. This is primarily due to the lack of creativity in these action set-pieces, which are clearly copied from Hollywood blockbusters, and to the fact that these scenes suffer from weak VFX effects.
The movie heavily rests on Shah Rukh Khan’s shoulders, and he delivers. If you give him a half-decent script, he has the perfect combination of decent acting chops, plenty of charisma, and a massive fan base to carry the film and make it work, like in the case of Pathaan. This is his first full-fledged action movie, and he quickly establishes himself as the most vulnerable action star in Indian cinema. Throughout the course of the film, he is beaten, bruised, battered, exhausted, dejected, and even sheds tears. Deepika Padukone holds her own as the former ISI agent and makes a convincing case for herself as a leading lady worthy of a top-notch action film. Dimple Kapadia and Ashutosh Rana, two seasoned actors, provide staunch support for Shah Rukh Khan in their respective roles. The sequence in the laboratory where Dimple Kapadia and the physicians come to a critical conclusion is one of the best in the film, displaying Dimple Kapadia’s incredible acting skills. Her performance in that scene was so powerful that she managed to silence a noisy theater where I was sitting. Salman Khan’s entrance brought the house down as he arrived at the ideal point in the movie, giving it a much-needed boost. His rapport with Shah Rukh Khan was both natural and electric. In addition, the film contains one of the best post-credit scenes in recent memory.
Pathaan offers nothing new, but Shah Rukh Khan’s presence, paired with a compelling villain, helps it cross the finish line. Watch it in theaters.
Pathaan movie link: IMDB
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