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Star Cast: Shreyas Talpade, Amruta Khanvilkar, Jitendra Joshi
Director: Nikhil Mahajan
What’s Good: Marathi cinema tries its hands at coming up with a superhero film that’s based on folklore and not any scientific reaction. Also a brilliant performance by Jitendra Joshi as the villain.
What’s Bad: An over-stretched plot that drags for almost three hours. The story moves at snail speed and also a shoddy editing spoils it even more.
Loo break: I bet you need one!
Watch or Not?: If you want to see Marathi cinema’s attempt at creating a superhero, watch this. Also if you are a fan of Shreyas Talpade who returns to Marathi cinema after 7 years you may like Baji.
User Rating:
Baji is a legendary hero whose stories have been floating around as folklore for years in Shrirangpur. He has taken the mantle to save the village from every possible calamity. After his disappearance for years, people question his existence and start terming him as a legend.
In the same town, Chidu (Shreyas Talpade) is a goofy-like guy who owns a local shop. Chidu is in love with his childhood friend Gauri (Amruta Khanvilkar) since years and decides to confess it to her. Gauri is a daredevil girl who was once saved by Baji as a little girl and ever since then is in love with him.
Amidst all this, Martand (Jeetendra Joshi) who has lost his father, is a disturbed person who accidentally finds hidden treasure in the village. As greed takes over, after hearing a old fable about hidden treasure underneath, Martand decides to dug up the whole town. He takes over the village and with it comes violence against poor villagers.
Once again, Shrirangpur is in trouble and so will Baji rise again to rescue it?
Baji Review: Script Analysis
Predictability drives this plot and that could have been a passable point had the film not dragged for long. Baji is brilliant with its narration and also the way the plot moves between present day and the eleventh century. Also the portions of animation added in the film are a good way to execute the folklore. Although one major problem is that it derives inspiration from all international superheros and so while we seem him masked sword fighting like Zorro, there is also a Batman moment in the film.
The second half is completely messed up as it gets highly dramatic with a double role. The film falters mainly because of a messy plot that has too many elements. Post-interval the story loses its grip. Also, in terms of dialogues, there seems to be little efforts taken, they lack the punch required!
Baji Review: Star Performances
Shreyas Talpade after a hiatus is back to Marathi cinema and he looks comfortable. As a naive and shy Chidu, Shreyas completely wins you over. His beefed up look for Baji is quite impressive.
Amruta Khanvilkar plays the female lead and she is quite impressive. Nothing challenging in her role but she does a fine job.
Jitendra Joshi may be the Villain but he is the true hero of this story. As Martand, he scares you to the core. His screen presence is extremely powerful.
Baji Review: Direction, Editing and Screenplay
Director Nikhil Mahajan ventures a unknown territory after his debut Pune 52 with this film. His idea is good but the presentation has a lot of loopholes. The screenplay is fluid but since it drags into unnecessarily long scenes it is a downer. While it is a superhero film at hand, one would expect a good powerful background score but Baji lacks that and thus the scenes look completely flat. An already predictable plot needs an intelligent direction and that is where this film falters. A shoddy editing makes this almost 3 hour film a drag and so one does not even enjoy the songs. The film at one point picks up a solid inspiration of National Treasure (Hollywood film), thus leaving you stunned with the thought of where the story is heading.
Baji Review: The Last Word
Baji came out as Marathi cinema’s failed attempt at coming up with a superhero vigilante tale. I found the film highly over-stretched for its predictable content. I am going with a 2/5 for this film.
Baji Trailer
Baji releases on 6th February, 2015.
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