‘Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan’ Review: Salman Khan’s Eid Film Has Cliches and Cringe, But Also a Message of Hope

Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan

Cast: Salman Khan, Pooja Hegde, Venkatesh, Jagapathi Babu, Virendra Singh, Rohini Hattangari, Raghav Juyal, Jassie Gill, Siddharth Nigam, Shehnaaz Gil, Pakal Tiwari, Vinali Bhatnagar and Satish Kaushik

Direction: Farhad Samji

Rating: **

Showing in theatres

Salman Khan’s entire filmography resides proudly in B-grade zone, but his films can be split into three neat categories. 

The first, highest category is also the least populated with a few films like Dabangg, Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Sultan, and the Tiger series. These films had a story in which Salman Khan played a character and tried to act as much as he could. All of these films were enjoyable, some more than others, and have built, and embellished his superstar and box-office clout. 

The third is the most populated category where most of Salman Khan’s films dwell. In these films — Jai Ho, Bodyguard, Ready, Prem Ratan Dhan Paayo… — he plays an extension of his real and reel self, i.e. Salman Khan the lout whisperer, and the films are made up of situations in which he is required to pose, maro a dialogue or two, dance, fight and waste our time and money. They are all similarly unbearable. 

In the middle of these two categories sit a few films that have a bit of both. These are films that seem to have a story, a few decent actors and lines but are mostly just Salman Khan being Salman Khan. These films don’t enhance his stardom. They are just meant to maintain his starry status quo by keeping his fans engaged. 

Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan [KKBKKJ] falls in this middling category and delivers the absolute bare minimum expected of a Salman Khan Eid release. 

In KKBKKJ, Salman Khan’s shirt comes off, his abs preen from a shaved, glistening torso and in a fight sequence, he uses gym equipment to beat men carrying automatic weapons. He romances and dances, but his steps and moves are geriatric-friendly and involve gentle half-squats and some shoulder touching.

KKBKKJ is ridiculous and stupid in the usual Bollywood, Salman Khan way, yet there’s something significant about it. 

The film delivers the message of hope on Eid through its seeti-maaro one-liners, including this dialogue assigned to a cameo appearance: “Bhaijaan ki shaadi mein Ram deewana”. 

Based on the 2014 Tamil film, Veeram, KKBKKJ is set in two very artificial movie sets.

The first half of the film — when Salman Khan’s hair is long and always-blowing-in-the-wind — is set in the hero’s home in North India, i.e. a film set of a cute street-square which has cafes, florists, aquarium shops and wine bars with posters of a wine festival in Vancouver… but is referred to as a “basti”. 

The second half of the film is set in South India, the heroine’s home. This set is all heritage, vintage. There’s carved wood, brass diyas, silk sarees and gold jewelry. Here, men wear lungis, women wear gajras and meals are served on banana leaves with papadam.

Bhaijaan (Salman Khan) is a character concocted out of good, desi values, sanskar and deep emotions. Like SRK in Pathaan, he doesn’t have a name or known religion. But there is a back story of sacrifice that involves an orphanage and Bhaijaan spurning romance and marriage for the sake of his duty. 

All this means that Bhaijaan is often surrounded by three brothers whom we shall call 3 Nondescripts because they are like the extras of extras. Completely pointless screen fillers whose sartorial choices are as irritating as the vacant look on their faces.

Since there is a basti, there is obviously some dushmani with a politician (played by Haryanvi boxer Vijendra Singh) who covets that land. 

So, right at the beginning, we are treated to a dull fight scene where Bhaijaan talks to goons just like Salman Khan talks to the contestants of Bigg Boss, and then proceeds to beat them.

While Bhaijaan’s long, long zulfaein are lehraoing in the wind, Bhagya (Pooja Hegde), an antique researcher, arrives in the basti. In the very first scene, she saves a Jesus statue from getting wet in the rain, but proceeds to break a 400-year-old vase. But since Bhagya is sanskari, she recites a Bhagwat Gita shlok to Bhaijaan and they make a love duet out of it.  

Bhagya has a bade bhaiyya in Hyderabad, one Balakrishna Gundamaneni (Venkatesh), who hates violence. But one bad man, Nageshwar the “psycho” (Jagapathi Babu), holds a grudge and keeps dispatching his burly brothers and goons to attack Bhagya and her family. 

So Bhaijaan, Nondescripts and Bhagya head to Hyderabad, where emotions run high, sharp blades glide in and out of bodies, but Bhaijaan saves the day and izzat of his sasural with the help of Maa’s power.

Directed by Farhad Samji (one half of the duo who have been torturing us with Housefull), KKBKKJ is a silly, forgettable film whose story is a mix of Bollywood cliches and cringe. 

Though the film throws in two surprise cameos — one nostalgic and the other super current — and in its second half, it channels Chennai Express’ vibe, KKBKKJ draws most of its power from Salman Khan’s presence despite the fact that his character is a sum total of his on and off-screen reputation. 

In Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan, Salman Khan’s character doesn’t arrive. Bhaijaan sirf prakat hote hain, jab chahen, jahan chahen. He does that first in a hirsute avatar and later with a clean-shaven, smooth-smooth look.

In a telling scene in the film, Bhagya tells Bhaijaan how South Indians express emotions and asks him how he expresses joy, rage and sadness. He shows it, but there is no change in his expression. And that’s pretty much how Salman Khan is in KKBKKJ. He makes smokey eyes and projects emotions, but doesn’t act. 

Next to stone-faced Salman, Venkatesh and Pooja Hegde strike a strange note as actors who want to and can act. Both are quite good and bring some meaning to their meaningless roles. Hegde, in fact, makes several ridiculous situations and scenes bearable. 

KKBKKJ is lifted sometimes by funny dialogue and few decent actors, but is also often dragged down by terrible scenes and an ensemble of supporting actors who can’t act. Especially the 3 Nondescripts and their 3 Nonentity ladies. 

Despite all this and its gazillion dance sequences, a background score that sounds like someone is screaming, Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan is more than yet another exhibit of Bollywood’s continuing identity crisis. The film carries the spirit of Manmohan Desai’s secular-by-choice films, as well as a hint of Bollywood’s recently-acquired cockiness. 

Though I did not spot a masjid or a keffiyeh in the Eid release, all gods and religions star in Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan, some more than others, of course. In the film, Salman Khan says Vande Mataram at least twice, but on both occasions it’s preceded by what felt like a coded message of hope: “Sahi ka hoga sahi, gatal ka galat, Duaon mein hai dum, Vande Matram”.