BROTHERS (U/A)
Director: Karan Malhotra
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Sidharth Malhotra, Jacqueline Fernandez, Jackie Shroff
Running time: 158 minutes

An entire half of backstory and another half-an-hour of build-up and we are finally inside the ring. The two fighters come running towards each other with bloodshot eyes. The audience lost in their phones and popcorns look up towards the screen. Something’s gotta give.... One punch and it’s a knockout. And the father starts crying on the sidelines and the background music kicks in and we are back to the sentimental slush that is Brothers.

If one wasn’t aware beforehand, it’s difficult to comprehend that the film is a remake of Gavin O’Connor’s brilliant 2011 film Warrior. The last time Karan Malhotra remade a film, the only other time he made a film, at least you knew from the title that it’s Agneepath. Here, there is that big showdown between the brothers in the ring but the road to that combat is a weepy and wasted plod, the kind of Hindi cinema we had stopped making. Or so one thought.
It’s also quite inexplicable that when Bollywood copies chupke chupke, they are meticulous in their duplication, but when they officially remake a film, they choose to leave out crucial plot points in the name of adaptation. In this case, Indianisation.

In Warrior, the younger brother, played by Tom Hardy, was a US Marine who deserted the military and is facing arrest and so winning the fight tournament means so much to him. Here, Monty (Sidharth Malhotra) does nothing except look angry and sip from his small bottle of rum. Why would anybody ever root for him?

The elder brother’s story is kept intact. Almost. David (Akshay Kumar) is a physics teacher-cum-amateur fighter who fell in love and married Jenny (Jacqueline Fernandez). Just one daughter here and she’s suffering from kidney failure and not heart disease.

Both the brothers sign up for the Mixed Martial Arts tournament called Right To Fight and eventually face each other in the finals. In the middle is the father (Jackie Shroff) who was supposedly a fighter himself but the only punch he lands in the film kills his wife (Shefali Shah) and sets into motion the hate story between the brothers.

Shot extensively in slo-mo and peppered with melancholy songs, the Brothers first half is in constant mourning. The saving grace is the action in the last 40-odd minutes which is well choreographed (by an entirely foreign unit) but the punches can only land harder and have more thunder if there is an emotional understanding as to why they hurt.

The whole crux of Warrior was that you were so invested in both the brothers that you didn’t want either of them to lose. In the ring... in life. Here you only care about David, turning Monty into a villain of sorts and hence turning the film into a conventional good-vs-bad tale and therefore nullifying the cathartic joy of a fraternal reunion.

What makes this situation worse are some of the performances. Akshay is beautifully understated as the elder brother while Sidharth is loud and lost, making the affection quotient further lopsided.

Playing the character that won Nick Nolte an Oscar nomination, Jackie Shroff hams away to glory, emptying one glycerine bottle after the other, but not succeeding in extracting a single teardrop in return.

Jacqueline is surprisingly good in the little screen time she gets. Shefali Shah overdoes her bit as the flashback mom. Ashutosh Rana as David’s coach and Kiran Kumar as the tournament honcho are well cast. Trying to do another Chikni Chameli, Karan Malhotra gets Kareena Kapoor to do an item number here but Mera naam Mary is strictly bland.

The real pity is that while the action bit is reprised fine, Bollywood gets caught lacking the emotional depths and complexities of a Hollywood film. If a Karan Johar-produced family drama with a ready source cannot move you to tears or make you smile, the poetic collision of sweaty sculpted abs can do no damage. Movie fights are never won or lost in the ring.

Brothers is a bore because....
Tell t2@abp.in