Jawan at 57: Why Shah Rukh Khan’s latest could be his most important film yet

Jawan is up for a brush with box office destiny on September 7, and trade talk suggests the film could give its superstar hero Shah Rukh Khan the biggest opening weekend figures of his career. Bottled-up frenzy seems to be driving excitement around the film, the sort we saw ahead of Pathaan, too, although on a lesser scale. It is a frenzy that had been building up among SRK fans through his absence as a leading man from the big screen over five years, after Zero released in 2018. There is an interesting parallel one broadly finds here, between Shah Rukh Khan’s amazing return and what Bollywood’s everlasting superstar Amitabh Bachchan saw in the year 2000. Just as SRK came back to rule the popular psyche this year with two mega releases following half a decade in the wilderness, Big B returned to the spotlight in 2000 with a double impact blow — Kaun Banega Crorepati and Mohabbatein — after a series of cold shows through the nineties (his only clear superhit in years around the time had been Bade Miyan Chote Miyan in 1998, but that film was more of a Govinda-David Dhawan affair). With KBC and Mohabbatein, Big B shunned all detractors who had written him off, to return for a glorious second stint that continues till today. Interestingly, Amitabh Bachchan was 58 in 2000, Shah Rukh Khan is 57 now. Unlike Bachchan’s situation back then, SRK would not be too bothered about fending off competition from a formidable younger lot of stars as he returns. There is no generational shift of stardom happening in Bollywood right now, unlike in the late nineties and early 2000s, and Shah Rukh Khan’s generation continues to rule. The fact is worth noting here that most of SRK’s contemporaries who still matter — from Salman Khan to Akshay Kumar to Aamir Khan — have been struggling to deliver hits lately. Coming after Pathaan and given a current scenario that sees Bollywood reeling under flops, _Jawan_ opens at a time when the industry has identified Shah Rukh Khan as their best bet at big business. Market-savvy as ever, SRK would hope Jawan makes big money, too, more so because the film is produced by his banner Red Chillies Entertainment. However, there is more than just the scope to consolidate Bollywood supremacy here. The trailer promises plenty of fireworks will be unleashed by the film’s hero on screen. For Shah Rukh Khan, however, Jawan is also a scope to assert his stature as a popular icon. Few stars manage to transform as seamlessly as SRK has. Superstars, especially, are shackled by the demands of image. Expectation of fans is a problem that often comes in the way, and top names have been known to struggle while trying to reinvent themselves with advancing age. That is where Shah Rukh Khan has scored impressively, with Pathaan and Jawan. For almost his entire run from 1992, when he made his Bollywood debut with Deewana, to 2018’s Zero, Shah Rukh Khan was Bollywood’s King of Romance. Love-themed subjects and roles — notably, Darr, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Pardes, Dil Toh Pagal Hai, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Mohabbatein, and Devdas — catapulted him to the position of King Khan. By 2017, however, when Imtiaz Ali’s romantic drama Jab Harry Met Sejal flopped, it was apparent that being an icon of filmi mush was no longer a viable option, that the burden of his romantic image was telling on Shah Rukh Khan’s superstardom. The five-year break did him good, for it let SRK return in Pathaan and Jawan with a diametrically opposite image than what worked in his earlier phase. He is now an out-and-out action star catering to mass appeal. Jawan, more than Pathaan, seems to be an assertion that Shah Rukh Khan can score with the big bang masala impact that was so far considered home turf of contemporaries Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar.

Fans on social media, as well as sections of the media, have been quick to look at Jawan as an assertion of quite another kind. Many have been hunting for clues in the film’s dialogues that are highlighted in the film’s trailer. There are hints of personal assertions on the superstar’s part, fans feel, in the dialogues blended into the film’s screenplay. The trailer, for instance, opens with lines that might describe Shah Rukh Khan’s absence from the world of films for five years: “Ek raja tha. Ek ke baad ek jung haarta gaya. Bhookha, pyaasa ghoom raha tha jungle mein. Bahut gusse mein tha (Once there was a king. He lost battles one after the other. Starved and thirsty, he roamed the wilds. He was in a furious state of mind).” In another scene, a line goes: “Jab main villain banta hoon na, toh mere saamne koi bhi hero tik nahin sakta (When I turn villain, no hero can measure up to me).” The reference could be to SRK’s playing a role with negative shades in Jawan. “Beqaraar karke humein yun na jaaiye, aapko hamaare kasam laut aaiye,” the lines of the evergreen song from Bees Saal Baad waft through the soundtrack in a tense scene as the actor does a quick jig for the camera, almost inviting fans to return to the theatres. Another line in the trailer goes: “Bete ko haath lagaane se pehle, baap se baat kar.” It is almost like a reminder to the traumatic experience SRK’s son Aryan Khan went through on being detained wrongfully over charges of narcotic possession. It has all added to the enigma factor about Jawan, as has the spate of guesswork around the film’s plot and Shah Rukh Khan’s role. Officially, we know Nayanthara is the leading lady while Deepika Padukone and Sanya Malhotra make important appearances in the film, which is hardsold as “An Anirudh Musical”. Leher Khan, Sanjeeta Bhattacharya, Girija Oak Godbole and Aaliyah Qureishi play vital roles in the film that has SRK backing a group of young girls who act as vigilantes of society. Vijay Sethupati is cast as the brutal villain Kali, who introduces himself in the trailer as “the fourth largest weapon dealer in the world”. More than what is known, excitement has been generated by what is being presumed on social media and in the media. Trailer ‘decoders’ have been surmising that the film has not one but two, maybe three, Shah Rukh Khans, and that the drama is woven around the theme of revenge with ingredients as patriotism, suspense, action and romance thrown in. Everything that SRK has done in the past days has gone viral, particularly his trip to Tirupati to seek the almighty’s blessings, which ended up in the superstar and his daughter Suhana making a run to escape paparazzi cameras. Talk of Jawan beating the Rs 1000 crore-plus haul of Pathaan, as well as emerging as an all-time biggest blockbuster has started, too. It’s all worked at boosting the film’s buzz, which would be important to sustain frenzy beyond the initial week. SRK knows he needs a big box office score with Jawan, for a long second innings stint. (Jawan is scheduled for theatrical release on September 7, 2023) Vinayak Chakravorty is a critic, columnist and journalist who loves to write on popular culture.