Pathaan

Weird Way Media. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Bollywood Cinema Club, a podcast where every other week we take a look at Indian cinema, be it Bollywood, Collywood, Hollywood and everything in between. I am the host of the Culture Cast, Chris Statue, and I am joined by my good friend. You have heard him here before plenty of times on this show. He's also on Scary Stories we tell a couple of times and the Culture Cast.

He's been everywhere, but he's here right now. And him and I went and saw this movie in person together in real life because we're real life friends. My good friend in yours, Dustin Hi, and movie theaters like I just haven't been to them forever. Yeah, well me either. The last time I went to the theaters was Doctor Strange too, so that was like eight months ago.

So well, you know, going where we live to see an Indian cinema film on opening day, I didn't expect anyone to be there, and there wasn't anyone there, at least not for our showing. I think there were people at the showings later in the day. But if you're here and you clicked on this episode, then you know we're gonna be talking about We're gonna be talking about a little film and by little, I mean pretty big film that came out on the twenty fifth of January twenty twenty three, that is India Republic Day. We're gonna be talking about the latest entry into the why r F Spy universe. We're gonna be talking about Baton.

So the film, thank you. So. The film is directed by siddath excuse me, sidharth On. It's written by Srihan Raghavan and abadas Tarwala, and it stars everybody's favorite con at least well one of my three favorite cons, shah Rukhan as the titular Paton, a man tasked with taking down a really bad guy played by a well an actor who if you've listened to this show, or if you're a fan of Indian cinema and if you've seen the first Doom movie, well you would know all about John Abraham. John Abraham plays Oh my god, he plays Jim, which is actually the character's name, and he is a big bad guy who was an agent of RAW, which is the research and analysis wing of the Foreign and it's a foreign intelligence agency of India.

And so SRK plays Paton who is an agent of r AW tasked with taking down another agent, a former agent of RAW played by like I mentioned, John Abraham. And along the way we also into a familiar face from our journeys through Indian cinema to peak up Potacone as Robina Mosen, a double slash triple slash quadruple agent. We'll find out and hey, there are some cameos along the way, which is something that we knew about, thankfully because we did our research ahead of time. So Dustin, I am curious. This is the first Indian cinema film that you've seen in theaters.

Same with myself. We went together, sat down and watched it for two and a half hours, and I've got to know, what did you think? Well, we got done talking about Bahubali one night for two and this movie got brought up that hey, this movie comes out tomorrow. Just happened to look it up. It was playing in our local theater, which is super different.

Yeah. Yeah, it wouldn't say we're in like a small market, but I mean we're not. We are not an ethnically diverse community in that way. Right, So it that that did one thing that that showed me was, Okay, this is expected to be a pretty big deal, and you had said, like you explain many reasons why this was a big deal, but you know, SRK coming back to the big screen in like five years, I mean, that's that's probably I think the biggest deal is one of the biggest Indian stars coming back and leading a film and an action film for the first time in a while. So we just kind of said, let's go to it.

So I'm super glad we did because it was the type of movie that I think is best watched in a theater. There's just the way like they land punches, like it just just sounds aggressive in a movie theater, with those bass thumps and the explosions and the just everything that that movie in a movie theater. It was awesome. I really enjoyed it. It was action upon action upon action.

It was everything I had not seen an SRK movie to date. So it was everything that I had heard SRK could be in a movie. And from what I understand, he has quite the range, not just action movies, so I think he's not known for his action movies at all. Frankly, like when I think of s r K, I think of the DDLJ, which I showed you. You know, him singing at the piano, singing rook Gil Dewani, Like, that's what I think of.

So if you look at his body of work, you know there's comedies and romance and you know, a pretty wide spectrum of things, so that kind of fits. But I just I was just smiling, laughing, hooton and holler and the whole time. It was a lot of fun. I want to see it again. I want to see the rest of the Spy Universe movies too.

Now, So there is that, and I think that you and I are probably now going to embark down on that road of Eck the Tiger and that because again, if you walk away from this movie and you're not interested or sold on those movies and you haven't seen them, I don't know how you couldn't be interested. The scene with Salmon Kan and SRK in this movie is fucking amazing. And you don't even have to know who Salmon Kan is and understand the importance of who he is an Indian cinema and everything that comes with having him in this movie. You don't have to understand any of that to appreciate the scene that they're in together, but it helps and appreciate it more, especially with a post credit scene that we get.

But I am with you. I had no expectations going into this other than we watched the trailer together. It was absolutely everything I could have wanted from a action movie trailer. It sold me on the movie in a way that action movie trailers tend not to, because I mean, I feel like I've seen it all before, and I feel like if you're someone who watches a lot of movies like Dustin, like myself, like you, dear Listener, then you've probably seen a lot of action set pieces. But when you watch a trailer for a movie and you go, holy shit, I've never seen this before, that for me is really exciting and it's something that will, like you said, drive me to go see the movie the next day.

And so yeah, you know, I think for me, I'm glad that we went, you know, just up at the top here, I'm glad we went and saw it. Pre spoilers, this is a movie totally worth checking out. Like you said in theaters, I know that you know that idea post COVID kind of is a little maybe hard to deal with because you know, only in theaters and it's like nobody gives a shit to put it on streaming, Like I'm sorry, but but at the same time I say that, But then we watch a movie like this where it's it deserves to be appreciated in the biggest format that you can find it in, because it is a massive movie that goes all over the place in the a in the way that a James Bond or a Mission Impossible movie does. But it doesn't feel as self serious as those movies.

It's serious, but I don't think it ever loses that sense of fun. And I think that for me, that sense of fun is not something that I am used to getting anymore. And like you mentioned with Bahubali the conclusion when we talked about that the last time we did one of these together, Bahubali is fun. It leaves room for that fun, and this movie does as well. You know, we thankfully had nobody else in our theater.

It was just you and I sitting there for two and a half hours, and because this is a subtitled movie and we're having to read anyways, we were just talking about the movie and talking while watching the movie, and it helped my appreciation of everything because I was able to really appreciate the movie with someone else while it's happening, Because again, I really believe that, you know, cinema is one of the few things that we as human beings can appreciate together as a shared experience. And yeah, it was just you and I in the theater, but that's what made it such a memorable experience. But the thing is, the movie's good too. So from here on out we're gonna be talking spoilers. But this, I mean, everything that takes place in this movie is it's just it's it's off the wall.

It's just as insane as it's. The promise of the trailer is lived up to in the movie one and the trailer. Everything you've seen the trailer happens in like the first twenty five minutes, right, it's you're you're not even if you're the most astute movie watcher, you might have a hard time. Oh this is at the end of the movie, and this is at the beginning, because I mean American trailers it seems like they're like chronological, they're like telling the story of the movie from start to finish. I mean, we watched the trailer for the New Ant Man movie around the same time we watched Pathan, and I think I even commented, like, I'm glad they don't give away what's going on in the movie, but I'm sure once I watched the movie, I'll be like, oh no, they totally did.

I just didn't realize. But like you said with Pathan, like I didn't feel that way walking out of the movie. I felt like I was engaged the whole time by the movie. And the movie lived up to that promise of it's shah Rukhan looking like a hymn oh daddy kicking the shit out of John Abraham, who looks who Jim, who looks like the most badass motherfucker punts possible. Oh yeah.

Like again, like even though the movie is doing everything it can to make him a badass, John Abraham just has a great look, has a great voice, he has a great screen presence, and he is a perfect foil for SRK because SRK he's playing Patan, but he's kind of just you know, playing himself. I mean, it's kind of that's the thing with SRK. It's kind of always just it's him. But like what he is as an actor in the charisma that he brings to the role. He just kind of effortlessly dissolves into the role.

And so in this like, I fully believe that he is Patan like one and I cannot wait to see what comes next with all this. But I'm so glad SRK is back because he's fucking amazing. Yeah. Well, like you mentioned, the whole movie was just down to eleven. Like, when they were making the movie, they're like, Okay, that was cool.

How can we make it cooler? Well, and that's what it felt like, because you know, the best kind of action movies are just escalating and escalating and escalating and escalating to the point where you just you' there's there is no further that you can go. And I think this movie does a pretty good job of telling a narrative that not only escalates throughout the film, but also it has some kind of twists and turns to it. There's a pretty big there's a pretty big twist, I guess, and the I guess that's like the halfway point the intermission. Yeah, yeah, and then there's another twist about halfway through the second act.

So, and I mean it's not that I didn't see some of them. One of them it's pretty it's not obvious, but like you could do one or the other here, Like you could choose to have the character be a double agent or not. Like, but the other twist I didn't see coming with the mechanism itself, the kind of right, yeah, yeah, that was kind of like oh shit moment. Yeah, yeah, it was I don't know, like you said, it kept keeps hing aged from a story perspective, From an action perspective, the story was cool with how they did some of those twists, and then you almost can't look away from it because you might miss something right and it may not always be an action moment, but something that's happening, especially especially if you're reading subtitle.

Well yeah, well, and that's I mean, that's the other thing. We saw this movie in theaters. They showed it with subtitles. They didn't even say they were showing it with subtitles. We just went in assuming it would be with subtitles, and it was with subtitles.

But you know, I don't I guess I don't see what the issue is. It's a different kind of movie watching experience, but I don't think it's an unwelcome one. Huh No, it doesn't even face me like in this day and age, like go because I haven't gone to a movie theater and watched a movie with subtitles in a long time, and I didn't mind it at all. Like again, as someone who sits at home and watches a lot of subtitle movies, I just didn't know how it was going to feel seeing a movie with subtitles in theaters, and I liked it. Yeah.

I mean again, some people aren't going to want to talk through a whole movie, but you and I were the only ones in the theater, so gives a shit like that, right, which I mean is kind of a shame because for me, I got an experience that you and I will be able to share. But like, this is the kind of movie you want to see with like a packed house of people whooping and holleran and and interacting and responding to the movie the way the filmmakers intended. Yeah, that that's Star Wars like crowd. Like if you had that kind of crowd opening night, just yeah, everybody into it, Like yeah, that'd have been a whole other experience, not even like a question, because there are some moments in this movie that are like stand up in cheer moments like like really especially towards the end of the movie where we kind of get into the climax.

But you know, we have the John Abraham character of Jim, who is a former raw agent who goes, hey, I am now essentially Moriarty. I'm a terrorist for hire. So that's you know, Moriarty isn't Sherlock Holmes. He's a criminal for hire and he is hired by a Pakistani army general to take vengeance against India by any means necessary. And the way that they do it is by engineering a smallpox that kills people a little on the nose, but all right, it was the tad on the nose.

And so Pathan is brought in from exile to take on Jim and stop him from kidnapping some scientists who will then help him engineer this virus. And that setup is just pretty straightforward, like it just but it goes all over the place. We introduce Topika Patacone's character and she ends up being a triple agent, which she is so charismatic as well, and she plays off of SRK really well that I like that. There is a twist with her character being kind of morally ambiguous, but I don't think the movie needed it per se. It does feel a little unneeded.

Yeah see that it ends up not adding anything to the narrative really like because they end up teaming up anyway, Yeah right, and he ends up I'm going to save you anyways. So it feels more like, you know, obviously we haven't watched Ec the Tiger yet, but they kind of make reference to that in this movie because Depika Patakane's character is a Pakistani agent. She's an I SI agent, so she is not used to dealing with Indian agents the way she deals with Pathan, and that is apparently echoed in Ek the Tiger with Salman Khan in that movie and Katrina Keff. So it's interesting that they keep doing this. I mentioned it to you that it seems like they're trying to bridge the gap between India and Pakistan through media because again, you know, they talk about it in this movie a little bit, but I mean it is it's talked about in plenty of other Indian films.

When they're not talking about the British, they're normally talking about the Pakistani because again, Pakistan and India is a conflict that could explode into really bad shit for everybody in the Cashmere, and it's not something that's that's I think one of the only issues with this movie is there there's a little bit of cultural context that's needed for the villain's motivation, the big villain, General Kadir played by Minishwada. You need some cultural context for what's going on at the beginning of the movie. It's probably more people. Folks are probably more aware of that, you know, like if people in India are probably watching this and they know, they know, like it's it's not in a lot of ways.

The explanation is for an international crowds benefit as little as they explained, which I don't think they really explain a whole lot. But again, if like he's a pissed off dying oh the general, yeah yeah, yeah, I think a Jim Jim Jim, he's also pissed off. But it's interesting because again, like you, you do need a little cultural context to understand the overarching conflict, and maybe the conflict that the movies are building too is some sort of India versus Pakistan big war. Who knows? Who knows what these movies are building too.

I have no idea, but it would lead me to believe that these movies are probably building towards some sort of Avengers esque team up between Salmon Khan and shah Ruh Khan and Tiger Shroff and all these actors that they've been introducing and incorporating into this world. So this through line of Indian agents and Pakistani agents working together is an interesting through line because again, like this movie's twist doesn't need to exist and it doesn't really do anything with India and Pakistan. But I guess I just I don't understand what they ended up getting out of it ultimately, Yeah, because they make such a big deal out of it. Like, yeah, I do like like this connected universe of like this type of thing.

You know, it's not superpowers, it's not anything supernatural or cosmic. It's just cops and spies and army guys. And yeah, if it leads to this big crescendo of a movie, I think that's super cool because it's just these badasses. It's like not quite like Expendables was, but in a way where it just gathers all these people, names in people that you know, into one movie and it's just gonna be cool well and you I mean you see it in this movie a little bit, because we do have a pretty extended scene where Pathon is on a train and he has been kidnapped. After the climax of the first act, we get the intermission and Pathon is now on a train in Russia and he's being taken away to be imprisoned, and wouldn't you know it, all of a sudden, he's about to get beaten up even worse by the kind of other prisoners on the train because they're essentially being given weapons by the prison, by the head prison I guess guard to kill path On, And all of a sudden, the top of the train opens and in pops the scarf, and inpop Salmon Kan, who is in the first two movies of this connected universe, probably before they ever decided to make a universe, because I don't think with Eck the Tiger everything I've read, they had no intention of that being like an Iron Man type thing where it's like we're doing this with the an intention down the road, I think they saw, Okay, well, we've got a movie with Salmon Kan, and it that we've got a movie with Tiger.

Shroff and rihik Roshan and now and you know, it's like, well, why wouldn't we do this? And to your point, it's super exciting because there's nothing like this in American cinema. There's no I mean, we have Mission Impossible, but that's one movie and that's the same guy over and over again. I don't care what anybody says. I mean, you might like Tom Cruise.

I don't mind Tom Cruise, but it is just Tom Cruise over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, or like eight movies. I mean, even James Bond breaks it up with recasting of the actor. But because this is like if James Bond um Jason Bourne and why a man from Uncle even also yeah, yeah, it's like if those guys all came into a movie, you know, and did a Mission Impossible type movie, right, or like an even higher level threat, because I'm expecting whatever the big team up is, it's going to be some sort of like even higher level threat, so more than smallpox. Oh my god, I'm I'm actually really a fan of these like engineered virus movies. I don't know why, but it always like the Steaks always feel really elevated, like like the Rock right, like that movie, like stakes are really elevated, like because it's pretty fresh in our minds.

There is that, but it's also one of those things where it's like once it's once, you've let it out, like you can't do anything about it. And I like that there are that there are people willing to villains that are just beyond reproach, because that's I mean, that's the thing, you know, even with his kind of goofy name of Jim, which when we heard it the first time we laughed out loud, yeah, because it doesn't sound intimidating. But then you get the scene of them using a camera hooked onto the side of his bazuka to give us a kind of moving shot, which they show in the trailer, and it's fantastic and it's great seeing it on the big screen. But that's kind of your You do get some scenes with him before that, but that's kind of your big introduction to him as the character and kind of what he's trying to do is the first the scene where he kidnaps the scientists and shah Rukhan is trying to stop him.

That is that takes the idea that The Matrix created with that fight on top of an eighteen wheeler, and it actually gave its stakes and made it interesting, and it made and it made it where I was actually invested in what was going on because in The Matrix is like, nobody's gonna die. Neil is going to swip in and save the day because he can fly. In this movie, they there's no magical superpower to write themselves out of the corner, you know. In this it's they have to they have to be creative, and they I think they are pretty creative with the action set pieces. They're they're pretty novel.

When you have a man dragging helicopters through the air because they're tied together because they were trying to get one prisoner from one helicopter to the other, and he hooks it to the top of an eighteen wheeler. I've never seen that before any more than you have. And it's like, oh my god. There are still people making films that can surprise me as a viewer, as somewhat of a jaded viewer, because again, I just like yourself, I watch a lot of movies. There's I've said, I've uttered those words a few times watching some of these films, and I feel like Indian cinema has a knack for kind of pushing the boundary in a way that you don't expect well, and it feels like they're less restrained by the expectations.

I mean, yes, there are musical numbers in this movie, and yes they're catchy as fuck and there and not only that, but you would talk about how sexy everybody in this fucking movie is, because this is like a smoke show on steroids, from from Shah Khan looking like the himbo daddy of your dreams to de Pika Potocone looking like the most beautiful woman on the planet. Every time the camera goes to to even Jim, I mean, you know, John Abraham is still a good looking guy. You know, it's everybody in this movie, for the most part, is varying degrees of good looking, and they're all kicking the shit out of each other, even the terrorist Bieber. Oh my gosh, I like how there's a character in this movie whose haircut can only be described as Justin Bieber adjacent, if not just full on Justin Bieber.

So you've got all these bad and like, like, you know, they have basically the terrorist farmer's market in one scene that's like that opening scene in the movie, right, and everybody, you know, it's like, oh, yeah, you know that's a guy dressed in like all black military gear terrorists. Oh there's the Arab terrorist. Oh there. You know, you've got your you know, cookie cutter terrorists that you have seen in the world. You know that that stereotypical look.

And then you've got the Justin Bieber terrorist. And it's just kind of shocks you you see him, and I think he might be the one who says Jim the first time. Yeah, I think they say Jim for the first time in that scene. I really like John Abraham in this movie. He's such a good he's such a good villain, just such a just unrepentant piece of shit, like to the end in a way that again, like you you normally have these like villains who sometimes are redeemable, but it's like this guy has given a lot of opportunities to redee himself and he just plows through them with every opportunity, which I appreciate.

I really appreciate a villain who's he's just bad and he's still had he still has a charming streak to him, right, he does, He really does, still does, And there's even a part where a small part of you it's kind of rooting for him because of what happens to him. You're kind of like, yeah, get him. So, as these films tend to do, within the first half an hour of the movie, we're sent back in time for an hour of the movie's run time. And not only are we sent back in time to why Jim is the way he is and why Pathon is where he is, we also learn all about de Pika Potacone's character in a flashback. In a flashback, which I'm pretty sure breaks a lot of narrative storytelling rules because you can't flash How can the person flashing back know about that whatever?

It literally makes no sense if you think about it. How could the person flashing back know about the flashback that the other person's having when they're not that person, That's all I'm saying. But regardless, the first half of I guess the first half of the first act of the movie is in the present day, and then the second half takes place in the past and we learn why Jim turned on the Indian government. We don't know why he's been kidnapped in this flashback that we see, but we see Pathan's boss essentially telling him, Hey, he turned on us because he was captured along with his wife and being held hostage by terrorists who were threatening to kill his wife. And instead of paying for his family to be freed, like we would do with the prime minister or a political figure, like SRK says in this scene, we let them shoot his pregnant wife at close range with an AK forty seven and in the belly.

Yeah, and not just bang either, like like them. They were making a point. And it's like, like you said, like I get it. I the character of Jim, his motive makes sense, and I, like you said, I appreciate that. I appreciate that the movie, while he is this kind of repugnant figure who by the end of it he's totally okay with wiping out God knows how many people with rucked Beach the demon which ends up being the smallpox you know, kind of you know, engineered disease.

He does have a little bit of like you said, like I feel for this character because I've seen the lengths he's been pushed to. Yep, yep, don't want to poke poke Papa Bear. And I appreciate that really because again I appreciate that he you know, he is a straight up villain out of the mold of so many characters in these big action movies, but he is given a sympathetic side, and like you said, you do understand where he's coming from. He's not, he's not without re in why he's doing this. And frankly, if it were and if it were another movie, he would be the hero of the movie.

Huh. Yeah. Yeah, he just happens to be killing people a smallpox, which there's no good way of going about that. Yeah, that might have taken it a step too far, steps too far. I do like that.

You know, within this movie that is kind of an action movie, we also have a little bit of a heist scene where they have to go and steal a lock and a key to get this virus from a vault in Moscow. The movie just keeps giving. There's just so much, so many boxes at Chicks that you won an action movie. Yeah, And I feel so let down by American action movies recently. It's just in general, like they all kind of just feel very sammy.

There was a long time where action movies weren't allowed to be fun. Everything had to be James Bond or Christopher Nolan inspired. It's got to be dark and serious and dour. And Batman's not actually Batman, He's just a guy in a suit, and Tarving Dent is a guy with a burned face who actually died. It's like, fuck off, can't we just have fun?

Is fun or not allowed? Are we not allowed to enjoy ourselves? We go to the movies. I'm not saying every movie needs to be a complete, you know, fucking cgi nightmare and an action fuck fest, but like we life's too short to go and have a character like Batman being turned into this doward and serious meditation on justice and crime and vigilanteism. Like could you have done that with something other than Batman and still tackled the same topics.

So it's nice that an action movie is okay with being fun. That's that's very rare. It really have some sweet fight scenes. Our kids fucking ripped this movie. Yeah he is ament, Oh yeah, but he's the one with his shirt off a lot, yeah a lot, And you know what, he worked hard for that body, So I don't blame him for wanting to show, Okay, do you no If I look like that, I would have my shirt open all the time with my himbo daddy hair up.

I mean the first time I saw him with the shirt off in the movie, I think I said, damn well. And the funny thing is, like we've been kind of talking about, that's not the expectation with shah Rukhan is not He's going to take his shirt off and he's gonna be jacked you like. That's just you've seen him in other things, pictures of him and other things where he doesn't look anything like this. But it would seem that he's entering an interesting stage of his career because the next movie that he has is coming out in June, is another action movie, but he's playing a dual role, which is kind of interesting, kind of exciting. Dad, ah are it is Bali all over again.

I do like that in this movie there aren't flashbacks and played by different people that look that are supposed to be that are supposed to same same actors, different people. I'm glad there's none of that. This is supposed to be Pathon's dad. It just also looks like him. Yeah, but it's called it's called Jowan and it comes out.

Yeah, it comes out in June, June second, and he's working with a Tamil film director, so that'll be interesting. So sr K had a movie hiatus and now he's hitting the ground running. Oh yeah, dude, hell yeah, because you know what else? You know what else we're getting this here Tiger three Baby with Pathon as a cameo. You know you mentioned like when Salomon Khan's character busted through the train.

Yeah, I have not seen any of those other movies. Became aware of them the night before, and when that moment happened, it gave chills. And I know nothing about this, right, I'm right there with you, like I because all we knew was that he wears a scarf, and the moment we saw that scarf, I was like, fucking Salmon Khan. And then you get a scene that anybody in Western cinema would kill for, for your some level of those kinds of actors to be in a scene together, you know, riffing off one another and being kind of cutesy and fun and tongue in cheek, like you would love to see that with American actors, and we've seen it in avengers and expendables and stuff like that, but does always feel like a put on, Like it always feels forced.

Here. It's just like two charismatic guys just being charismatic and beating the fuck out of people. Because it would be like if Jason Bourne was in a fight and then Ethan Hunt bust through till I help them out pretty much just be like wow, Yeah, And that's the way. I think that's probably my favorite part of the entire movie. Yeah, that moment, all of a sudden, I want to watch all these other movies right now, that moment I'm with you.

And again, I think you know, we've talked about this before, and I feel like I talk about it on every episode, but I will continue to pound this point home every single time these actors step on screen, like Somemon Khan and shah Rukhan and even John Abraham just I don't know what it is, but they're just so goddamn charismatic and they're just they are. They are bringing an approach to acting that it doesn't feel like acting. It just feels natural. I think I even said in the theater, I was like, this is captivating, Like I am so sucked into this movie, right, Yeah, And I'm not like that with like I'll tell you the last movie I saw on theaters, Doctor Strange was not that way. I was bored.

I was watching and I was like, yeah, this is fine. This is just more of the same. Yeah, And yeah, like in comparison, I I like the Marble stuff. I've same comic book NERD growing up, and so I like seeing it on the big screen. It's fun.

But yeah, I never am I on the edge of my seat or like jumping up out of my seat to just holler with what's going on? And yeah, it's just different. It hits different well, and it feels in a lot of ways like Western cinema, at least action movies, a lot of them just going through the motions, you know, and again when you use you know. And I'm not saying this movie doesn't have CGI, because it has CGI. It has a fair amount of CGI, has a fair amount of stunt stunt people in place of our actors.

You can see it from time to time. There's a CGI face that's on shah Rukhan that's clearly his stunt that. Yeah, you can see it from time to time. And it's not great, but again, like everything else is so captivating. In any other movies, I might notice, but I just don't care.

Here. Yeah, they put the movie together in a way where, yeah, you don't care, you just want more. Remember how much everybody gave that Joss Whedon cut of Justice League shit for that stupid fucking Superman mustache thing and the fake mouth some of the replacements in this movie. Some of the cgiing of shah Rukhan's face onto the stunt person's body is that bad. But I do not care.

I don't care because I'm captivated throughout. Like you've said, buy a movie that again. At times, obviously it has to exist within this setup universe of the YRF Spy universe, so it's grounded. It feels grounded in reality, but it's that James Bond grounded in reality, where it's reality but a little askew, because in James Bond you have cars that go underwater in jet packs and like technology that if if if you knew about it, it would be life changing for anybody, like a jet pack or a lot of these things in James Bond, or like even if it's not in a violent application, it would still be like technology that people would want to have, and this movie has some of that with the jet packs and stuff and kind of fantastic right, some fantastical technology, but it's still pretty rooted in reality, but not in the way that like a bourn Is where all the fun has been stripped out and it's very idiot.

But that's the thing. The kind of the action set pieces in this movie are pretty hard. Like you mentioned, they're pretty hard hitting, and they're pretty gritty. They're not like Marvel style, like super like slick and super like stylized. I mean you you do have a level of choreography going on, but it's not all cgi.

The scene is one of my favorite scenes, and it's right towards the beginning when Pathan's trying to escape from wherever he's being held captive and Biber's punching him and he starts speaking to him, I think in Arabic and he's just just just got rocked. He's like interrupts him. He was, hey, Hindi curse at me and Hindi yeah, so like hey, chump. Well, and that for me is what SRK brings to the role. Like it's that it's that level of kind of tongue in cheek, comedy, charisma.

Every time he's on screen, you can't look away. He's just so he's he's so effusive with his charm. It's just so feels like it comes natural to him. Like if you were to meet Shah Rukhan, which I would love too, it feels like you would meet him and you would just be like, I would love nothing more than to be in the presence of this person for an hour, just to absorb whatever it is that they've got, that they were born with, because he's born with whatever it is, He's bored with it. Like he's just a natural showman and such a talented actor because, like you said, his range is drama and action and everything in between, and it's flawless.

He traverses the film landscape seamlessly, and that is not something that someone who is in an action movie like this in Western cinema can often say. Schwarzenegger has no range for the most part. As much as I like Jingle All the Way or the zombie movie that he's in, those are weird little exceptions that prove the rule. Like those are two movies in a catalog of Terminator and Judgment Day and Collateral and everything. Yeah, like a Predator and Last Action Hero and whatever, Commando and whatever the fuck.

Like, he doesn't have the same kind of range the shah rukandas because shar Rukhan's in serious movies and in rom coms, and I mean that he cut his teeth as a early nineties So in ninety three he cut his teeth on dar where he plays a stalker, which is not again like I've never seen it, but I know that it is a classic of his early career. And I want to watch that movie because I want to see what that looks like because I can't even imagine shah Rukhan being the villain of a movie quote unquote, And I know that in some movies he is, like I'm pretty sure in the remake of Dawn he is the villain as well. So it's interesting because like he does have a lot of range, but when he's just being charismatic, like it seems to be, when they're just letting him be himself, that seems to be the most successful.

Because you know what, Brahmastra, he was like one of the best parts of that movie. Yeah, well, what's what's interesting about like this movie I think we mentioned it while we were there watching, like I've heard Sarka talking like an interview about a movie or something, and same with Gary plays Jim what's his name, John Abraham, like when they're in the movie, and I don't know if there's anything added in the audio to this, but like they can just talk like how I'm talking now in real life, but in the movie they're talking like this, but they can kill it like that, Like they're talking like that the whole movie, and it's like, I don't know, they just deliver. There's something about Hindi that's just it sounds so epic when it's spoken slowly and in a lower register, because Sharrukhan is talking like this the entire movie, and so is John Abraham for that matter.

But it's again like we laughed at it when Christian Bale did it in the Batman movies, right, but here it works, Yeah, yeah, because they're just not overdoing it, like they're they're playing into the expectation of what you're thinking you're going to get with your action star of your movie and your villain of your movie. They're like they're expecting that you're going to have a character that talks like this and it's the same tone as everything else. Yeah, he's there, like the tone of the movie. Yes, you would have those people that talk like that. Yeah, But you know, I think the big takeaways for me with going to see this in theaters is a I outside of the subtitles, this felt like any other big blockbuster movie that we would go and see, like just on the face of it, not the quality of the movie or anything presented, but like that experience of going and sitting in a theater, it felt similar to other big action movies I've seen, which I think for me, you know when because we left the theater and we walked out and we were walking through the lobby and the guy was like, Hey, what movie did you guys see?

And I was like, we saw a pathon He's like, what is that? And so, you know, yeah, so we got in this conversation with him, but I was kind of wondering what we were standing there, Like what what would I have to say to someone to sell them on this movie to go and see it over whatever else is playing in the theaters right now. Because we're about to have a new ant Man movie in like two weeks come out, right, So what is stopping If it's purely subtitles, fine, fucking dumb reason. Fine, but I feel like we're not seeing advertisements for these movies. You know, we we commented on this when we were sitting there.

They didn't show a single preview for an Indian Cinema film before the Indian Cinema film that we were there to see, which I would go out on a limb and say that people who were there to see Pathan are not there by accident, so they probably want to see previews for Indian Cinema movies. I'm just spitballing here. Greg Marcus of Marcus Cinema. It blows my mind that that not even one, no, not even one, not even one with subtitles, which we know is a thing, because that's how we watched the trailer for Pathan the night before, was with subtitles on YouTube. We weren't.

We don't know, HINDI. I mean, I know a little, but I don't know enough to just turn the subtitles off. But I I mean, they could show a preview for Pethon in the theater before any movie that they're showing to drum up interest for the movie that they're going to be showing in their theater, like you know what I mean, Like, I don't think if you went and saw a movie in the theaters a couple weeks ago, they would have even shown a preview for Pethan. Yeah, And I don't know, I don't get I don't get the point. I guess.

So the only way you're going to the movie is if you know literally, Like that's what it feels like. And that feels like a shame because for people not to be interested in something primarily because they just don't know about it is it's an easy problem to fix in a lot of ways. I shared the trailer probably a dozen people that day after we went to the movie and told them I just watched this in the theater. It's awesome. Out of the dozen, I've probably got three that were like interested in maybe going to it or checking it out, so which I kind of expected.

I mean, some of those people are like subtitles in no way, like it's like, man, you're missing out. You can almost put the subtitles on there and it would still be fun to watch. Well, And that's and that was kind of what we had been talking about while we were sitting there. It's like, you know, I think these movies work best when they're a really broad stroke and the characters can be understood without the dialogue. And again, it's obvious John Abraham is the bad guy.

It's obvious that SRK is the hero. And you know, yeah, the Depica Potacone character, you know, her twist wouldn't make sense without dialogue, but she visually betrays SRK as well, so you would be able to understand that scene with without the dialogue. I think, I think in twenty twenty three, not watching a movie because of subtitles, I'm actually going to take a stand now because I know that we Again I'm not light lightly standing, but this is a hard stance. If you can't get over the fact that you have to watch a movie with subtitles to watch that movie, get the fuck over it. Yeah, like, for fucking for fucking real, Now with shit like this, with a movie like Pathon, you are not going to watch this movie because of subtitles, then you're a fucking idiot.

As far as I'm concerned, it's a big, big world, and there's a lot of people in a lot of places making really cool shit. So and a lot cooler shit than we're making right now, Like this stuff is more interesting, more novel, more unique than whatever we're going to get this year. And I'm not saying that Western cinema is bad. I spend most of my time talking about Western cinema, but I spend most of my time talking about Western cinema. So like, the trends in Western cinema are very easy to follow if you are having to sit and watch things constantly and then take a step back and go, what are the trends here and what are we pushing for?

Because we're on post post superhero movies now, like superhero movies are not what they used to be, And it feels that way. I don't know if the pandemic did it or it's just Marvel did it to themselves, and maybe aunt Man will revitalize everything, but it feels like that big Oh, everybody's into Marvel and everybody's all Infinity ward, Like it's not doesn't feel like that anymore. It feels a lot more of a level playing field for everybody, And it feels like it's it's now time for movies that aren't being made by Americans to get a bigger play because, like you just said, the world is a big place. It's it's massive. There's so many good movies out there that are being ignored by Westerners because they have to read.

And I think that's such a shame. It's just like so fucking stunt. I don't know how else to explain it other than you don't like to read. But we read all the time. When people tell me they don't read, I ask them how?

And then how do you do anything? How? You look at your phone? You're reading, You're on Facebook, you're reading, You're on Twitter, you're reading, you are reading. You're just not reading anything that matters.

You're wasting your time. You're fucking doom scrolling and looking at TikTok and Instagram and shit. And again, if you want to use that as a distraction, fine, but don't tell me you don't read. You're just not freading anything with purpose. You're just reading small tidbits of information throughout the day and amassing that in a bag, as opposed to a couple things that are specific that you've spent a lot of time on, like a movie or a book or whatever.

You know, whatever you want to read, you're reading, or I might even say, just watching words, you know, you're not really comprehending much with what you just describe. But something like this, like you have to read, you have to comprehend and attach it to what's happening. I don't know, admit to me, it makes for a more like plugged in experience because I'm I'm hearing another language, I'm reading what it means, I'm seeing and feeling the action. Like you can almost start to like I've been saying jahind all the time now because now I know what it means and I like the power that it delivers when it's said, especially by SRK. Yeah, it's so good.

It's just everything about this movie is so good, and it bums me out so much that I you know what it really it bums me out, makes me mad however you want to put it. It makes me so mad that you have to convince people to watch this movie because you don't have to convince people to watch half of the other shit that people are watching. Oh I'm oh, let me convince you to watch the Office for the fourth time, or watch you know, you know, or Captain America or whatever, Like I don't have to convince you to watch any of those things. But I have to convince you to watch a massive action movie with some of the wildest set pieces I've seen in a while, and some great music to boot, and some really interesting actors, and I have to convince you to watch that because of some subtitles.

All right, fine, like I guess, I guess. But the point behind this podcast and the reason I wanted to do this show was to share with people who are already into this some film's worth checking out, but also to plead to convince people who are maybe not that into this idea that it is one pent okay to have never seen one of these movies before, but to have this like visceral reaction. If I won't watch a movie with subtitles, is it feels oddly racist? Yeah? I don't want to say racism, because I know that that's a dog whistle in and of itself.

But what don't you like about having to read subtitles? If it's purely I have to be engaged, then you shouldn't be watching anything like you and you're reflectively not like you said, I mean, just having something onto the background does not count at all. Like, I'm sorry, but if you think that I sit and watch movies for the culture cast, and I'm not sitting and watching the movie. I don't know what to tell you, you know what I mean, Like you have to be an active, active viewer, like you said, to appreciate Indian cinema. And I think maybe that's what it is.

It's people just want to be able to be on their phones or be in doing other stuff, which I get you can do with English language stuff because you don't have to look at the screen. But then why not just listen to something then, because if you're not looking at the screen, then why not listen to an audiobook or a podcast or something else because what the screen doesn't matter? And you want to look at your phone? Oh right, because people don't read books even if they could listen to them. So it's I think it's just a matter of we don't want to be engaged by anything.

Yeah, don't make me think, don't make me pay attention. I mean that's what, like you said, if you go into this movie, you can't sit on your phone, not because you don't don't or can't or don't want to, it's because you literally can't because you will not if you want to know what's happening. You won't be able to know if you don't. You've got to connect dots. Yeah, being said to what's happening?

And yeah, And I was just sitting there thinking about people listening to this episode right now. I want them to look at the time stamp of the audio right now. And when you share this with a friend that you think should watch this movie or check out you know it's that friend that doesn't watch things because they have subtitles. Share this moment with them, tell them fast forward to this moment. And Okay, now I'm talking to that person.

As you said earlier, get over yourself, go try something new, Go watch this movie. It wasn't until Chris, our dear host, had me, not had me asked me to check out a couple of these Indian cinema movies. And I have not been more excited for watching movies than I have been since doing that. Like, like you said, Western cinema is one thing. Yeah, these movies are out.

Sure, I want to see him. Every movie we've talked about I have been excited to watch because it's all new, and it's even older movies, but it's still it's a new type of cinema. It's a new type of film that I'm just not used to. The formula is different, and that's exciting. Well, and you know what's funny is like you watch something like this right and you can see the influences Mission Impossible, James Bond with the gadgets, and you know, all kinds of stuff.

But like you said, ultimately, all this is is a formula that we've seen viewed through another culture, and that enough is exciting. The sensibilities of Indian filmmakers and Indian actors and Indian producers and Indian screenwriters and Indian playback singers and everybody involved in Indian cinema in a production pre and post capacity are bringing a unique viewpoint to it that we do not have as Westerners, as as as the kind of Westerners we are even not just here point, but the execution of it, right is it feels different, Like it's just different. I feel like I feel like the actors like almost give a shit more than what I'm usually watching. Again, I'm inclined to agree with you even if that's just us kind of viewing it through Masala tinted glasses, which I don't think is the case.

But I mean, like anything else, when you watch something new, it's it's exciting to get excited about it. But yeah, I have been doing this now. So this show Bollywood Cinema Club came out of me doing Indian Cinema one month in twenty eighteen or twenty nineteen. It's five years later, and I'm still as excited as I was then to watch these movies now, and I have but scratched the surface. I will never watch everything.

I have done five Indian Cinema movies a year for the last four years and finally launching it into its own thing where it'll be twenty six episodes of a show a year, and if people want it to be weekly, I would even go to weekly, because again why not. Like you said, there's never going to be enough time to watch all of them. But at the same time, I can try. I can try to watch all the good I can at least try to watch some of the good ones, because not everything's going to be good. But even the stuff that I've seen that's not great, it's still entertaining, it's still interesting, it still has something to offer, even if it's not entirely all quality.

But at the same time. Like you said, I get excited for this in a way that I don't get excited for anything else. And I'm not the only one, and you're not the only one, because people who have done this with me and been on this show, like yourself, like Heather, like Father Malone, like Mike White, like Jess Byard and Maggie, the Odd and Otto and Adam and everybody else who's guessed it on this show, They always ask me, when are we doing another one of these? What are we doing next? What can we do next?

This is not forcing anybody. Everybody's super excited, and that is not That's never the case with the culture cast. Not every everybody's not on the same page. There. Sometimes people are like, oh, this movie sucked.

Oh I didn't want Yeah, well not that movie, not me, of course, not you, and not that movie. But I hadn't been so excited to go see a movie in theaters in a long time as I was seeing this. And you know what, I said it to you when we left the cinema, when we left the theater, that we should try to do this like more often, maybe not all the time, but like once a month, because again, like we do have the opportunity to see these movies new, which is not something I really was expecting. I was expecting maybe we would have to go to Omaha, which not that big of a deal. I mean, you know, it's forty five minutes.

We have more movie theaters there because well, our town has some bullshit and we have to go and support the bullshit to be able to watch movies, which fucking which fucking sucks, frankly. But the fact that we have this in a movie theater is it the one that's kind of a pain in the ask to get to. Sure, but if you go on a weekday, it literally doesn't matter. Parked across the street, right. It's nice to know that we can watch these movies in the theater's state side with subtitles the day that they come out, because that opens up a whole new world for this show, because I can go and watch the new Indian Cinema movie before it comes out on prime video two months later for the Western audience.

Ostensibly because again at the end of this movie, we saw that there was a Prime video little little logo meaning that that's probably where it's going to be when it comes over here. Just like blar just like Lal Singh Chada did on Netflix, So you know, and I'm going to watch it when it comes out. I hope video I will too. I'm going to throw it on my home theater downstairs and crank that fucking thing up and watch the shit out of it. But and I've already seen it.

I'm excited to watch it again. And that is not the case for most things anymore. Yeah, sometimes a lot of time has to go by, but I can't wait. Yeah, and I can't wait to watch Eck the Tiger and it's sequel, and then the kind of the next in the line of the YRF movies, The War, which is the one with my personal favorite Ritigro Sean. But I am, I, like yourself, have not been this excited to watch movies in a long time, And I am so glad that you feel the same way, because it's I don't get to feel validated a lot on this show, but I do feel validated here with you about Indian cinema.

And I'm not going to say everybody else I wasn't concerned, but I was kind of concerned because you don't come from the background that a lot of the other people I work with and I never know how anybody's going to respond to something like this, and it is so reassuring to me to watch these movies with you, and you go, this is a lot of fun. I'm enjoying this. So thank you for enjoying these movies. Because again, if you said off, these movies suck, like, oh no, I found the person who doesn't want to read the subtitles. Instead, I'm saying, when's the next one?

Exactly? I'm right there with you. And we're getting Tiger three later this year, so I and Sharrukan's going to be another shar Rukan movies coming out in a couple months. And I'm sure that Indian cinema movies are coming out, if not every week, whenever they're coming out in India, if they're big enough movie, they're probably coming over here if they have distribution. And yeah, is it one screen?

Yes, but you know what's better than no screen? One screen? Right? I would? I wish that we had the opportunity to see these movies on our side of town, but the theaters here on our side of town are more our leaner for the things that people want to see that they're not risking putting in the theaters because this is a risk, you know, and ultimately that is That's why I was so surprised that we could go see it, because I would not have thought Marcus Theaters would be showing Indian cinema, but because I know Cinemark does, and Alamo Drafthouse does, and a lot of other big chains do.

But we're not ethnically diverse here in this community in a way that I would have thought would have necessitated it. But I am so unbelievably glad, and I'm so glad that we got to see this together and we had one of the best movie going experiences that I've personally ever had so and it wasn't just the movie. It was the company. It was the movie, it was everything. And that you know, I want to kick it to you as we end this episode.

You know, what's kind of your takeaway from path On? I mean it, it made me even more excited for more movies coming out of India. And I don't know, I just like I this is one of those movies I can't wait to show to people like either out of their own free will to watch it, or I will make them watch it. I really want you to watch Triple R. Like, I feel like you're going to have my list.

I feel like you're going to feel the same way about Triple R that you do about this movie, and maybe even more so because again, like and you know, Triple R is kind of now, this kind of lightning rod given that not to got nominated for an Oscar, and you know, there are people complaining, myself included, that you know, Indian cinema didn't get enough love at the Oscars, as if the Oscars actually fucking matter. But there are people that watch the Oscars to have their taste made, and it would be nice if Indian cinema could make it across their eyes a little bit more, to maybe give them an idea that Indian cinema isn't just fucking slum Dog Millionaire, which isn't an Indian cinema movie. It was directed by a British guy.

So just pointing this out for everybody playing it. And it won the Oscar because of course it did, because of course it did. I look, you know what, I think a lot of people, myself included, have a very weird relationship with Slumdog Millionaire because it's very patronizing in a lot of ways, and I'm not a I'm personally not a fan of that movie because Danny Boyle is just okay by my approximation, which I know will make a lot of people who like Danny Boyle's movies very angry. But ultimately, Danny Boyle doesn't need to be making a faux Bollywood movie right as a British director. Yeah, a lot disingenuous.

So as far as I'm concerned, I'd much rather watch this movie or War or Eck the Tiger or anything that we've watched together Baha Bahly or Bruck Muster or anything. So you know, I think, for me, I'm glad that we watched it. I'm glad that we could go to the theaters and watch it, and I'm glad that the movie was good, because again, all those things without the movie being good would have just been well, it was fun, but the movie was kind of a lark. And you we were talking about this and weird leaving the theater. On Twitter, there were a bunch of people saying this Will is crap and it's stupid, and fine, I mean, you're entitled to your opinion, but if you're going into this expecting some sort of serious rumination on things you wandered into the wrong movie theater.

Guys, Ye, get rid of get rid of all those expectations, and just go have a good time at the movie theater. Yeah, which is so rare these days. It feels like such a rare thing to be able to find. So, so on that note, the next time you can hear Dustin and I will be talking about I don't know, maybe Eck the Tiger. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.

I mean we did, we kind of kicked it around, but we'll be coming back at some point, you and I to talk about something. But until then you can find you and I and everybody else over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com, where every week we post plenty of shows that you should be listening to, including this one, The Culture Cast, Mike White's The Projection Booth Father, Malone's Dark Destinations Twisted and Uncorked. I could keep going, but I don't want to, because you should just go and see for yourself over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. As for this show, Bolly would send himaclub dot com. Bolly would send him a club on social media, but that shit sucks and nobody cares, so just listen to the show, like, rate and review wherever you find it, and as always, we'll catch you on the next episode.

Peace,