The sheer brilliance of Radhe : Your Most Wanted Bhai cannot be grasped or summed up by us mere mortals. Take the smoldering on-screen charisma and acting chops of Marlon Brando, the script and screenplay writing skills of Aaron Sorkin, the background music score of John Williams, the masterful editing of Thelma Schoonmaker, all of it directed by Steven Spielberg. Now throw it all away. None of that firepower compares to this landmark cinematic achievement, this magnum opus, that will be remembered for generations. Replace Brando with Salman Khan, Sorkin with Vijay Maurya, Williams with Himesh Reshammiya, Schoonmaker with Ritesh Soni and Spielberg with Prabhudeva, and you have barely begin to scratch the surface of the cornucopia of talent in this Taj Mahal of movies. It's so unfair, it's not even a contest. Ignore all those jokes and memes on the Internet and your Whatsapp groups, like the one about no vaccine is an effective antidote against this movie or that paralyzed, wheelchair bound people have miraculously been able to walk out of it. They are a product of inferior minds who have received too much oxygen from the Central Government.
Understanding the intricate, quantum physics level story of Radhe is a fool's errand and suraj ko chirag dikhaney ke barabar, but as they say, fools rush in where angels fear to tread, so here goes. Try and keep up with me if you can. Rana (Randeep Hooda), an axe and knife wielding, all black leather jacket and pants in Mumbai heat wearing don has arrived out of nowhere to nonchalantly take over the drug trade with the help of just two henchmen. The incumbent Mumbai drug mafia have no choice but to bow to this leather clad fashionista, I mean come on what other choice do they have but to roll over and play dead. The Mumbai police department must have been tired and spent, no doubt, after looking since June last year for an actor's murderer, and searching for his actress girlfriend's Rs 15 crores based on solid leads and evidence from the calmest anchor on TV and his extremely stable genius actress from Himachal source. So they turn to Radhe (the one, the only, the Bhai, Salman Khan), because this work is beyond, as one of the top cops says, any normal police officer, it requires a specialist. Radhe has 97 encounters and 23 transfers to his credit in 10 years, qualifications that of course make him eminently suitable as an upholder of the law. He comes in with that swag se karengey sab ka swaagat manner and promises to a 10th grade kid to clean it all up before his Board exams just like the Swaccha Bharat Abhiyaan. He is aided in his efforts by ACP Avinash Abhyankar (Jackie Shroff) providing Chaplinesque levels of humor and his nubile sister Diya (Disha Pattani) who is a NASA Perseverance Mars rover scientist level of intelligence possessing model. She is so smart that she never refers to Radhe by his name, instead calling him Bholu throughout, for covert security purposes I am sure. The rest of the supporting cast is equally up to the task, and a brilliant ensemble of acting talent. Singling out or naming any of them would be grossly unfair, akin to asking a cook to pick that one special grain of plain rice from the pot. By now you would have guessed the Einsteinian levels of intellect at play here, so I won't reveal any spoilers, about the twists and turns of the linear plot. I will not tell you that this will improve your eyesight because you can see things coming from a mile, I will not tell you that good triumphs over evil, but only in the most non-stop gory fashion perfectly befitting an audience of adoring kids who look up to the Bhai and his work output. I will not tell you that the nearly 30 year age difference between the hero and heroine is not only perfectly okay but not creepy in any way.
Last year the pandemic stole from us the one thing we look forward to all year - Bhai's Eid release. We can now trust Dr Fauci that the pandemic's end is near and it will end soon if we are all fully vaccinated. I have it on good authority from someone at Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida ("people are saying") that Fauci made this claim only after he saw Radhe : Your Most Wanted Bhai. This Eid, defying all odds and common sense, Bhai has taken a small step for man, and a giant leap for mankind because ek baar unhoney committment kar di to phir woh khud ki akkal aur humaari maansik santulan ki nahi sochtey,
Eid Mubarak ! Jai Hind !
May 15, 2021
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