A Flying Jatt Man 4 Hindi Dubbed Movie Download
Asela Buchheit
It might make sense, as you read this, if you imagine my face frozen in a rictus of confused (and occasionally horrified) joy, as that might be a start to understanding the sheer depth of emotion I've felt over these two and a half hours of film.
Given the recent market glut of superhero films, I think I've spent the last couple of years watching more movies in this genre than not, though this has had increasingly less to do with rose-tinted nostalgia for the days of Superman movies and Shaktimaan and more to do with the fact that I've started to write about militarised masculinities in actual detail. As a result, I've spent many a weekend gritting my teeth through what has become the standard formula of any superhero film: a parade of barely witty quips thrown in around the imagery of institutionalized militarism. Weep with me in despairing confusion as bad lighting and massive eight-pack polyurethane abs abound like ostrich-egg-holders welded to a man's belly as he charges heroically through primarily white neighbourhoods hypocritically vowing to protect life while inflicting massive bodily injury.
If this seems like a sweeping castigation of a great deal of contemporary blockbuster cinema, that's only because it very emphatically is. The grand majority of Hollywood's offerings in the genre, and even Bollywood's more awkward contributions of the Krrish series and RaOne, have left much to be desired in their narrative choices. When a superhero is more likely to be either offensive, boring, or some combination of the two rather than likeable, there's not a lot of appeal left in the genre as a whole. Or at least that's what I thought until I watched A Flying Jatt, Remo D'Souza's 2016 Bollywood offering to the genre.
It's amazing that this film exists for so many reasons, but the main one is that its protagonist, Aman Dhillon (played by Tiger Shroff), is not just genuinely loveable, but hilariously willing to admit to his own excitement about superheroes and locate himself within this nostalgia. This isn't a film that pretends being a superhero is the hardest thing in the world; it's one that sees it as a mix of joy and duty, and that's a rare and wonderful thing to see these days. There's a truly wonderful set of scenes where Aman attempts to discover his powers and choose a costume, and these include references to the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Tarzan, and Superman, as well as the martial arts films of Bruce Lee (he fights tennis balls (not ping pong balls) with nunchaku and frames himself constantly against the sunrise), and India's own superhero films and parodies, most notably Krrish (2006), Quick Gun Murugun (2009), and Enthiran (2010). So you have Aman, his mother (Amrita Singh), and his best friend/de facto brother Rohit (Gaurav Pandey) all watching films where superheroes fly, arguing about how Aman needs to hold his fists for best flying position. They are so excited by the possibility of him hulking out that they heckle him relentlessly through his meal while he looks cowed (since this is business as usual for him). They stand by with kerosene and fire while Aman watches Johnny Storm/The Human Torch, to check if that's the solution (after they know he's invulnerable, of course). If you're not making a million "Tiger, Tiger, burning bright" jokes by now, you clearly aren't as thrilled as I was about the potential for terrible wordplay.
The film thus has a fairly radical stance with regard to environmental justice and capitalist power, but in its abrupt attempt to reverse both, it falters, as it tries to dissuade viewers that it has any politics at all by aligning itself with sheer sentimentality instead. The townspeople ineffectually attempt to plant trees to delay Raka's effects, and a final showdown (in space! This was joy itself!) occurs between Raka and Aman. Aman, having finally accepted his dastaar, wins by virtue of embracing his Sikh heritage and destroys Raka with his kada (a bracelet to denote Sikh faith).
That said, despite the fact that I think the film couldn't sustain its radical premise long enough to actually accomplish what it set out to do (i.e. talk about actual problems in the Punjab with industrialism), it did give us a Sikh superhero who is amazingly loveable because he's so attuned to his community. Aman's mother makes him buy vegetables at a local market on his way back from patrolling the neighbourhood because the costume might get him a discount, prompting a local mother who sees him buying lauki (bottle gourd) to prompt a resentful son with the reminder that even superheroes eat lauki and grow strong. He can also absorb information through his fingertips, and this results in an amazing dance sequence where, while being held up by Malhotra's goons, he accidentally touches Sunny Leone's latest album and performs a rather suggestive dance to the hit song "Babydoll" with their leader. Rohit laments, "Yeh Sunny Deol ke bagair Sunny Leone ban gaya! Mujra kar raha tha aur uspe goli ki barsaat ho gayi thi!" ("Instead of Sunny Deol, a popular Bollywood hero known for his fight scenes, he became Sunny Leone, a well-known singer, model, and actress. While he was dancing seductively, they rained bullets on him instead of money.") The scene, by allowing Aman to inhabit this female Bollywood icon's persona for a moment, not only plays with the stereotypical perceptions of hypermasculinity increasingly associated with superheroism, but also allows him to save himself and his friend by leaving the villains dumbfounded for a moment by the sheer seductiveness of his performance. While Rohit might lament Aman's unwillingness in that moment to be Sunny Deol, Aman doesn't seem particularly phased by his moment as Sunny Leone. And while the scene is played for laughs, at no point do the men verbalise homophobia or gay panic (a rarity in scenes of this nature in Bollywood).
Similarly, Aman's powers as a superhero never create him specifically as hypermasculine in contrast to his original character. For example, despite his invulnerability and flying prowess, Aman remains terrified of heights and flies primarily at the height of a car, as a result of which he greets people politely when he pulls up alongside them and reminds them to use their seatbelts and not use their mobile phones while driving, and also allows stray dogs to chase him through the streets as he begs them to follow a car instead. (I have to admit, I was laughing so hard through these parts that I could barely breathe.) Invulnerability, speed, strength, and an ability to fly are all part of his repertoire, yet Aman remains careful because he's spent the majority of his life with these fears and needs time to come to trust these new powers and unlearn past habits. Again, vulnerabilities of this nature aren't often emphasised in this genre.
Despite all this, there are problems when it comes to the development of the female characters in the film. Kirti never quite graduates from anything other than a basic love interest designed to reassure the audience of Aman's heterosexuality, and goes from sassy best friend to a salwar kameez-wearing supportive wife-to-be, which is a really traditional narrative for women in these films. Similarly, Aman's mother goes from an amazing round of drinking whiskey and slapping corporate shills to a more "pure" incarnation of a supportive mother. I have to admit, I preferred both characters in the first half of the film, and could easily have skipped over Kirti's character completely.
It's not a perfect film by any means, but it's one which genuinely loves the global superhero genre and wants to put it to good use. Call me jaded, but that's something I haven't seen much of in a long time.
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