Revisiting a film that was considered splendid is tricky. It makes you anxious if the new version would do justice to the celebrated feature and re-capture its magic.
But imagine if the original isn’t worthy of a sequel?
Judwaa 2, the re-boot of Salman Khan’s 1997 comedy about a pair of twins and their comedy of errors, may fall into that category.
The movie about twins who get separated at birth but are connected by a set of “mental reflexes” (twin A is punched and twin B feels the pain too) is a satisfying comedy on a good day, and unbearably cheesy on a bad one. So, was there a need for this sequel and does it spell the death of creativity in Bollywood?
Varun Dhawan, who plays identical twins Raj and Prem, brushes our observation with: “Haters are going to be there for everything that you do today.”
He believes that Judwaa is a pop culture classic — complete with iconic songs such as Oonchi Hai Building — that is begging for an update and will appeal to the youth who aren’t acquainted with the original.
While that’s hardly a valid response, Dhawan, who made his acting debut with the flashy romance Student of the Year, marches on.
“You also face that. When you write a review for a film you are called names… People can get nasty. It’s a part and parcel of our professions. Think about it: The Comedy of Errors was written by Shakespeare and then Angoor was made based on that. From Angoor [in 1982], there was Hello Brother and the same story was made into Judwaa, but people enjoyed the same film in each decade,” says Dhawan.
Directed by his father David Dhawan, who also led the original, Dhawan just wants everyone to just “chill”. The 30-year-old actor claims its makers have spun the original idea on its head and done something new with it. Jokes that wouldn’t fly with audiences today have been scrapped altogether and replaced with new situations.
“Judwaa 2 is a reboot, but the entire story and screenplay is new. There are like four or five scenes from the original that [are] there, but the circumstances are different... It’s a completely new chapter,” Dhawan says.
He claims he is a big fan of the original and feels immense pressure to do it responsibly.
The twins in the film are separated after their father exposes a powerful smuggler and his racket. They reunite as adults and join hands to destroy those criminals who endangered their family. In the trailer, Dhawan basks in the spotlight as a buffed and bronzed hero who can dance, fight off villains and also make people laugh with his physical comedy. There’s a scene where he is fighting off baddies, but stops abruptly, adjusts his crotch and then resumes the fight. It’s a gag that’s supposed to make you smile.
“I don’t have to defend myself but there are people under the age of 20 who haven’t seen the original… This comedy is not influenced by the West and we aren’t seeking inspiration from them. This is a movie that has come out of Hindi cinema, from our own industry,” he says.
He’s proud about that, but he draws the line at potty-mouthed humour in Judwaa 2.
“I just don’t like abusive humour… if you have to say a joke, you can say it flat out and there’s a poetic way of doing humour… look at our amazing comedians like Sunil Grover and Kapil Sharma. They have this unique way of getting their humour across without ever being crass,” he said.
He also digs Will Ferrel’s humour, even though it is wildly offensive.
“Saturday Night Live was offensive on so many levels, but you cannot take it seriously and yet you enjoy it,” Dhawan adds.
In Judwaa 2, there’s no social message that they are trying to drive home.
“I wanted an emotional connect with Prem and Raj so I practised a lot in front of the mirror to get my parts right… The idea of the film is to entertain and I want you all to come out smiling. And we are not trying to tell how the society should behave,” he says.
Dhawan was more concerned about how he would look shirtless. His father David’s brand of cinema is glossy with gregarious characters. There are scenes of perfectly sculpted bodies belonging to Dhawan, Jacqueline Fernandez and Taapsee Pannu traipsing around gardens and beaches. To look in peak physical form, Dhawan enlisted a trainer from London who was on his case for more than 40 days, and an action director working on stunts. Spending over two hours in a gym no matter how tired he was from the filming was how he got into the best shape of his life.
“It was no working vacation in the sense we had a lot of fun, but we had to train and be careful at what we ate. All of us had to look our best physically and it is never easy,” says Dhawan. But he wants his viewers to sit back and enjoy the ride with Judwaa 2.
“When you are watching any movie, even if it is a serious one, just be chilled about it… These days, everyone is a critic, you just got to live with that… We make films for the audience and it is they who matter the most. Judwaa 2 is for them,” he says.
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Don’t miss it!
Judwaa 2 releases in the UAE on September 28.
Quote-unquote:
“That is a part and parcel of being an entertainer. You need to take the blows in the chin when something doesn’t work. But my intention was not to offend or hurt any other human being. As an entertainer, my intention was to make people have fun. 99 per cent of the time, my humour has hit the right spots,” said Dhawan when asked about his nepotism prank at the recent International Indian Film Academy Awards that did not go down well the audiences. Dhawan, along with his mentor Karan Johar and Saif Ali Khan, took digs at Kangana Ranaut and her charges of nepotism in Bollywood.
