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Pathaan (2023)

 


Pathaan is a Bollywood movie about an Indian secret agent who has to save his homeland from a group of mercenaries.

Written and Directed by Siddharth Anand. Anand takes a lot of his inspiration from the Mission Impossible and Fast and Furious franchises. If I'm wrong about that, then there certainly are a lot of similarities.

The film stars Shah Rukh Khan, who is considered one of the four Ruling Khans of Bollywood. Some critics would call him the Tom Cruise of Bollywood, but in my eyes, they are totally different. He has a flair about him throughout the film that is unmistakably confident. He fits perfectly for this film as I wanted his character to succeed in saving the day. People interested in seeing eye candy will also enjoy this film because of him.

Deepika Padukone is the lead actress in the film and love interest opposite Shah. I first saw her in xXx: Return of Xander Cage with Vin Diesel. I can imagine she learned a lot from her experience in Hollywood, even if she might not want to be associated with the film. She's gorgeous, no doubt, but she can also sell the fact she's a spy. I look forward to seeing her in Fighter which she teams up with Anand again to make an Indian Top Gun-style movie.

Salman Khan makes a brief but memorable cameo as Tiger, reprising his role from There Once Was a Tiger, Tiger Lives, and the upcoming Tiger 3. 

Every time the movie would have John Abraham on screen a musical cue would chime. I loved it. The film knew what it was doing and it worked. John plays the bad guy who wants to harm people with a twisted and believable motive. 

I'm glad there's a large Indian population just 15 minutes east of me otherwise this film might not have played in my area. Pathaan is a film American audiences will overlook unless word of mouth spreads about the film as it did with RRR. In my eyes this film is better than RRR, sure it has some janky cgi but I was engaged for the 2 hours and 26 minutes. Pathaan is a solid B.

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