Jawan: If Shah Rukh Khan is the king of hearts, then Atlee is the king of massy films

Apologies for beginning on a scatological note but such is the fact: at the Dubai launch of the Jawan trailer, Shah Rukh Khan declared on the mic, “When it comes to mass, Atlee is mass, baki sab is sandaas”, meaning, in the realm of mass films, Atlee is mass itself and the rest are toilets.

This brings two questions: What exactly is a mass film, and if indeed Jawan director Atlee is the best at it, why is that the case? With Jawan having reportedly amassed over a hundred crores gross on the opening day itself, these are pertinent questions to dwell on. No other kind of film has a hold on the Indian imagination currently other than the mass film, Pushpa and KGF being two other. So, what is this all about?

There is no codified definition of a ‘mass film’. Film scholars in the West have devoted a tremendous amount of time to analyse and catalogue their film traditions (film noir, neo realism, et al), but our Indian scholars have perhaps found the ‘mass film’ disreputable to study.

A ‘mass film’ is a populist entertainer whose sole purpose is to deliver the audience relentless dopamine shots through successive scenes of the unassailable male hero being (super)heroic. It is designed to turn the theatre packed with the actor’s devotees into a temple. The whistles, cheers, claps and dancing become a kind of Jagran. All the elements of filmmaking, beginning from minutiae such as character arc or narrative arc in a screenplay, to the more conspicuous building blocks like all the supporting actors and the CGI, are in service of building up or accentuating the hero’s heroism. Nothing else is prioritised. Naturally, Nayanthara and Vijay Sethupathi fans are feeling shortchanged in Jawan.

Such a film can cause havoc at the box office only when there’s not just a magnetic enough central performance by the superstar actor but also everything else in the film surrounding the actor is consistently hitting the bull’s eye. This is where Atlee succeeds like no one else — this is what Shah Rukh Khan possibly suggested. This also seems to be the case if we look at his three collaborations with Tamil superstar Vijay that has brought him this reputation.

Let’s quickly turn to what Jawan is actually made of.

Most leading actors in India are lucky if they get one slow-motion entry shot cut to rousing music in one film, where their hands, feet and sunglasses (if any) are slowly teased to reveal the actor eventually. In Jawan, Shah Rukh Khan gets at least six to seven entry shots, perhaps, more. And nearly every entry shot has Khan in different facial prosthetic and wig because, firstly, there are two Khans, who look different, and, then, one of the Khans is a vigilante who keeps changing his looks from one mission to another. So, Atlee is giving you multiple Shah Rukh Khans at the price of one ticket. With multiple Khans, comes multiple entry shots. Multiple entry shots = multiple dopamine shots. The pleasure centres in your brain that get activated on seeing Khan once are milked again and again. This is what Atlee does: give you more and more of what you enjoy the most. Think of it as climaxing very frequently with minimal foreplay.

Atlee applies this principle to the entire screenplay, co-written with regular collaborator S Ramanagirivasan. Shridhar Raghavan, who co-wrote Pathaan and War, serves as script consultant.

One tragic flashback for the hero won’t do. In Jawan, Atlee gives you four-and-a-half tragic flashbacks, out of which one flashback is the prequel of another flashback. The final flashback is quickly chopped up and rushed through because the film is already 169 minutes, so we are counting that as a half-flashback. Two-and-a-half of these flashbacks belong to three of the six women in vigilante Khan’s gang. Phew. All these flashbacks exist to make you feel as enraged and sentimental as possible for the vigilantes’ cause because so many Khans and action scenes are naturally going to need as many sad backstories as motivation.

Therefore, Atlee just keeps throwing more of everything at the screen to achieve maximum impact. There is no such trouble with this formula except the filmmaker can run the risk of boring the audience with a single action-less talky or dramatic scene. If the dopamine shots are relentless, like, scrolling your phone or tracking social media constantly through the day, you are bound to feel anxious and uncomfortable when you are suddenly cut off from it. This happens frequently in Jawan, but thankfully, Atlee knows best. He will quickly throw some trick at you: a superstar cameo, then another superstar cameo; perhaps, a song and dance; a new mission; a new action scene, Khan with a new look.

Atlee wouldn’t have such control over his filmmaking until Bigil, his third and last film with Vijay. It’s a film that has to be seen to be believed: Atlee punches the Chak De! India plot with the story of a gangster film, held together by son Vijay’s need to fulfill father Vijay’s promise, after father Vijay was wrongfully killed by the bad guys. And all throughout, the screenplay delivers moral science lessons through the plight of a few members of his all-women football team, just like the Jawan screenplay consistently pushes you to see the vigilantes’ point of view and try and be a more conscientious citizen. It is unimaginable for a single film to carry so many themes and subplots, but Atlee somehow makes it work (at least, for this writer). The second half of Bigil, particularly, has continuous scenes of son Vijay facing some trouble from one or the other bad guy and overcoming it. How can one write varations on the same scene again and again? But that’s what the job of a mass film writer is.

It was in Bigil that Atlee perfected his method of overstuffing the screenplay and go all guns blazing. Until then, his films were only a rehash of films by his mentor, Tamil filmmaker Shankar, and Tamil filmmaker, AR Murugadoss, another Shankar devotee. Shankar is best-known for his vigilante films (Gentleman; Indian; Mudhalvan, which Shankar later remade in Hindi as Nayak; Anniyan, and more). In these films, Shankar tracks just one central protagonist and his backstory. Shankar keeps the film grounded at the level of story and screenplay, with the grouses against governmental or corporate systems coming across as everyday and commonplace. He only goes big with the action scenes and song sequences. In contrast, Atlee plays every element in the screenplay at the highest possible pitch, while borrowing from and remixing Shankar films. In fact, just the number of Shankar films Atlee borrows from in Jawan can be a separate article. Here’s one example: the vigilante breaking the fourth wall on a news channel in Jawan was done earlier by Kamal Haasan’s protagonist in Shankar’s Indian.

Ultimately, Atlee’s form of cinema is a bit like drawing a baby’s attention with a rattle toy: ADHD cinema. You suddenly hide the rattle and the baby starts to cry. Atlee figured out in Theri and Mersal, his first two films with Vijay, that he is not the best writer of drama and comedy. He is going to screw up the film’s emotional bits if the scene comprises characters sitting and talking. He decided his strength lies in action scenes or punching dramatic scenes with physical action plus kinetic action on the editing table. So, he increased all the action and scenes of heroism in Bigil, which we call ‘mass moments’, and turned everything else into filler, with the exception of one key scene between father Vijay and son Vijay where the emotional fulcrum of the film is laid bare. Having perfected his style, Atlee attempted Jawan. If Atlee’s sole motive was to have you go bananas over Shah Rukh Khan in the theatre, he has been successful once, twice, thrice, as many times as there are Shah Rukh Khans in the film.