Film Review: “Batla House” Rinses and Saffron-Washes the Same Studly Shit
By Jaya Dubey
Spoilers ahead.
A date movie this was not. We should’ve stayed home and watched KBC instead. Only one annoying propagandist to deal with and only for an hour.
While Canadian Akshay Kumar’s 21st century, Mr. India avatar (Pad man, Toilet man, Mars man) updates the old Manoj (Mr. Bharat) Kumar trope, John Abraham inhabits the more khakified niche (and a very solemn-ey, beribboned and bemedaled niche it is. Have some R-E-S-P-E-C-T). If Akshay Propaganda Kumar massages India’s fascist fantasies of rosy unnati cum pragati and wannabe superpower bragging rights, John Abraham is your uber-cop panting for retribution against India’s E N E M Y number 1. Same shit, same upper caste Hindu mustachioed machoism, different faces. Added bonus? All this stuff happened in real life, guys. So there. Are we a great nation or are we the greatest nation?
The premise of this film is the same as all cop films, Holly- to Bollywood: how dare you question the police and its tactics of serial bullying and brutality? How dare you hold the police accountable for systemic discrimination or disenfranchisement? Why not instead give the police more leeway to enforce the law, more ammunition to intimidate and incarcerate the undesirables? Can’t you see how lacing John Abraham in this constitutional strait-jacket is so damn restrictive — it’s like putting someone in jail without a hearing, and throwing the key away? Jesus — do you even know what that’s like?
Because fuck democracy and due process. Western ideas, colonial chutiyapa and all that.You better learn to say, “Jai Hind” on auto-pilot, motherfucker.
Sadly, we haven’t armed and empowered the police enough. Then how dare we question men who wear uniforms that also double as kafans? These beefy beefcakes (oops) step out into the world every day ready to eat bullets. How fucking dare we bleat about human rights? Do you know how exhausting it is to face judicial inquiries and multi-departmental investigations as a result of all this racket? How it impedes police from policing and lowers morale in the ranks? It’s a freaking war zone out there! The next time you’re in trouble, just wait and see if the police come to your aid. Tab pata chalega! Just like the NYPD’s decided to sit on their hands and not make arrests for minor offenses because, what the hell, your constant whining got a cop fired — just for killing a black man who dared to sell loose cigarettes!
Batla House suckers you into expecting some psychological complexity — raises some hopes that it won’t be the clichéd policemen-are-tortured-superheroes genre. Maybe this time they’ll expose the underbelly of fake encounters and vigilante justice that plagues the Indian judicial system and Bollywood’s giddy re-enactments? Maybe this time there will be some organic call for reform?
Nah.
The calls for reform are dismissed as astroturfed in this film. It’s those fake activists, don’t you know, who like the sound of their own voices and profit from the genuine distress of the poor and marginalized. The real reformers are, you guessed it, the bravely brave policemen. It’s the guys who’re trying to clean the gutters by skinny-dipping in sewage (and using sewer gas to make chai and pakoras) — yeah, those guys’re the realest heroes India needs and deserves. Anyone who says otherwise is a bloody anti-national and better self-deport to their motherland: FcPukistan.
First off, koi doubt bhi mat rakhna: The police are underdogs in India — undermined by oily politicians and mistrusted by a feckless public. Meanwhile, what’s with the free press and their constant braying? Aur kitna presstitution karoge? Fucking vultures. And Jeez, why don’t Muslims trust the cops who know what’s good for them and their community? After all, ACP Sanjay Kumar (our film’s hero and that fine upstanding Hindu, and anointed masiha) knows how to respect the Quran the right way: hold it reverentially up to his eyes, kiss it, read Arabic verses and translate ayats from — all to educate a Muslim suspect (bloody ass, can’t even read Arabic for shit). Don’t you see what these knoble and knightly men have to put up with? On a daily basis? Now why in god’s name would you want to tie my John’s hands when he’s itching to make India so awesome, so right? In fact, this ACP’s so goddamn right that even terrorists from Terroristan are tripping over themselves to say so in video testimonials.
But wait, you want sensitivity? Bam! Here’s Sanjay Kumar battling inner demons as you crucify him. He’s vulnerable, guys. So broken. Psst, it’s PTSD. What a breakthrough in Indian cinema! This valiant film (National Award toh pakka samjho. But c’mon, Akshay Bhakt Kumar already has it in the bag) dares to touch touchy topics of manly McManly men and mental illness — for all of four minutes.
Hoping this’ll be explored more?
Duh, see how our ACP has flashbacks (some in color, some in slo-mo black and white) as he’s strafed in a beautifully-choreographed war zone? See him reeling back from that one bullet that hits his Kevlar-kavached chest on a loop? You doubters can’t even see the tragic beauty in all this mayhem! Watch, as the film carefully crafts his super-sensitive side. So what if it’s only after the hero’s Jesus-ey “I take all blame in the line of duty” side has been firmly established? He’s a 21st century MARD for Ram’s sake, and iss hard-core, muscley mard ko dard bhi hota hai.
What? Now you want feminism too?
Behold our woke ACP who understands what it’s like to be married to a cop. You could be widowed at the drop of a hat! He totally gets it, ya. He didn’t even impregnate her for her own damn good. Heck, he even checked into therapy because that’s what wifey wanted. And gasp, it’s a FEMALE therapist! See, how the pressures of hyper-masculinity that demand routine spectacles of bravado and human sacrifices take a toll on a REAL man, his relationships, his freaking wajood?
But hang on. Don’t get any ideas that supercop is traumatized by guilt or any questioning of his moral compass.
Nope.
If there is trauma, it is our own damn fault and not his actions or the system he represents. Society sucks. Because thanks to liberals like you and me bad guys have too many rights, too many weapons, too many sympathizers, too many mics, too many cameras. And the good guys are held back as a result. Thanks a lot, democracy. Picture someone lathi-charging or tear-gassing you, just ainvayeen. How does that make you feel, hunh? Holding you back, or kettling you in with heavy-duty riot gear and see-through shields? Bitch, that’s how emasculating it is to be a policeman in India. What would you even know with your libtard biases and sickular bleeding hearts?
Fucking constitution.
And what happens to women in these macho fests of valour and dandiya raas of imagined-underdogness? Dammit, they are these massive obstacles. Fatass potholes on the expressway to masculine glory. Eesh, these mewling women’re so needy and emotional. Will you please stop with your anxious phone calls about how I am and where I am? I’m busy here being a fucking hero. Can’t handle this jaan-hatheli-pe-lekar-nikalte-hain lifestyle? Then quit me (and therefore India). Go back to your parents. Be selfish.
Or.
You could get in line and be a badass but sanskari cheerleader for my touchdowns and sixers. See, how empowered you’ve become as you go from western to desi outfits? So ballsy that you even knocked down that other castrating woman who dared to undermine your man.
Girl, smile more. Walk around in heels, swing that ass and long hair. More eye candy, bae, less leaking. But first, be a good twenty years younger to my distinguished, hardened aging.
Heal me. Hold me. I don’t ask for much.
And when the day of reckoning comes, beam smugly, nod your head in absolute devotion and surrender. Coz I have such a show to stage on that witness stand. Remember Adam Levine at the Super Bowl with his loudass “California” and HINDI tats and all? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. All that broody stoniness and constipated intensity I’ve been practicing in a mirror for two-thirds of the film? I will now unleash it in a preachy lecture that these sobbing, protesting libturds need force-fed to them — anally.
You just sit back, and watch my righteous tandav.
Watch me do the job of the prosecutor one hand tied behind my back. Because sure, we got that actor to say a few words, but more to be the rapt audience for my character’s steely uprightness. And pffft, I know legal stuff better than any lawyer anyways.
If I had Levine-like tattoos to show off hon, it would say I N D I A on my flat-as-fuck abs. There’d be the tricolor for sure on my cumgutters (man, it just makes me weep each time I cast my lowly eyes upon it). My wider than 56-inch chest has room for the Satyamev Jayate emblem. And for my asli compassion-for-minorities wala patriotism. Aren’t ya glad I didn’t rip my shirt off like that loser Salman Khan? See how subtly I cream myself?
And then, only then babe, tell me how enchanted you are with my longer-than-five-minutes speech. And I’ll slash my lips into a humble smile. Did I tell you already, I’m so proud of how you’ve grown to hero-worship me like I am bloody entitled to? So proud of how you’ve groomed yourself to become my satellite, self-ejecting from my fiery path. And Brava, for no longer asking naggy-ass questions.
Took you long enough.
And sorry. When I rinse and repeat this formula two years from now, you’ll be too old to play my adoring foot-soldier and kar sevak. Dang, I did forget to put in the requisite sex scene in this film. No hot grinding and writhing action. No graceful arching and coming (because a chiseled and uniformed deshpremi knows his missionary position and how to make his woman orgasm).
Meh, just wasn’t feeling it, I guess. Slugged it out over some tough choices: kill you off post-coitus to make the ACP even more angsty, or axe the sex and keep you alive as my apostle… Well, we did want to make this film more PG-13 too — notice how there’re no gaalis even? Gotta lure the young’uns before they turn liberal. Or maybe there’s no sex coz I’ve grown too. Become more mature. More humble?
Nah.
Jai Hind.
Dear reader: Jaya Dubey writes this elegiac fanfic with a heavy, heavy heart. After lusting after John Abraham for over a decade she has publicly decided to break up with him for pulling the same lazy crap over and over again (or maybe she’s just pissed he’s overdressed in the film). Who told him to pump and primp himself up into a thicc saffron phallus? Give me back my Salaam-e-Ishq John Abraham any day.
Originally published on Feminism in India and re-published here with their permission.
