Coolie Number 1 review

The following document is the review of the 2020 release: Coolie no.1- a film directed by David Dhawan, starring Sarah Ali khan and Varun Dhawan.

The movie starts with an animation sequence that, within 2 mins, gives the entire background to Varun Dhawan’s character(Raju Coolie) and how he ended up being a coolie. It also gave context to his relations with other coolies and why he is so respected by them. The only 2 minutes in the film are emotional and understandable. Everything following that sequence is problematic. To begin with-

1. Why is Raju Coolie hitting someone, just for speaking to him & his fellow coolie disrespectfully? And it is not just pushing and pulling, he is hitting the antagonist hard, slamming him and then acting as a Hero. This is the introduction scene to Raju coolie, placing him as a powerful man, which he has to be in some or the other way. Here he is powerful physically, to compensate for his lack of economical and social power.

2. The reason for the intense fight was not even justifiable, nor was the audience given time to feel that level of agitation. This is the case with the entire film, the cuts are very quick and there is not enough context for any scene.

Speaking of context, it is a concept completely alien to Sarah Ali Khan’s character (Sarah Rozario)

3. Sarah’s introduction to the audience was in an ‘item song’. This song sequence is Raju Coolie’s fantasy of his future wife Sarah and through him for all of the male audience resonating with him- A happy and sexy Sarah.

4. Throughout the movie there are no questions asked or answered about what Sarah does career wise, what she wants to do, how she can probably contribute to the house. A logical reason for Raju Coolie to marry someone would also be to get financial support from his spouse's career. But logic to this film is what is a giraffe to an astronaut, Unrelated! She is only there for her visual and sensual appeal. This is seen in the way she is dressed, for example when she dresses in a skirt while living in a chawl. It has to reference the environment, she was just dressed up and presented to keep the audience interested.

5. Javed Jaffery’s character( Pandit Jai Kishen) is an epitome of how the Indian society treats women, without any consideration whatsoever. He is offended by Sarah’s father(Jerry Rozario) and decides to take revenge on Jefrey by marrying off his daughter to someone she has never even met or heard of, let alone consented.

7. Paresh Rawal’s character decides to get his daughter to marry two random boys he has just met and does absolutely no background check whatsoever. His character might be the only one close to real life. Let’s not forget his brilliant plan- getting his daughters married off to the rich boys by getting them pregnant.

8. Throughout the film, a number of job titles are insulted without any remorse. For one, how Sarah and her sister spoke to the plumber when he showed up and how they changed the tone of the voice when they realised that Varun Dhawan was not the plumber. The whole movie showed Varun being proud of being a Coolie but overall the job of a coolie was looked down on, spat on and made small even by Varun’s character who himself is a coolie.

9. My biggest problem is Raju Coolie talking loudly and disrespectfully to Sarah. This was after returning from his father in-law's place. He knows that she was worried for him but he still yells at her without even comforting her. And she takes it. Sarah takes shit from Raju coolie, believes him for his word and acts submissive, throughout the film.

10. Lastly the action sequences in the movie made sure to place it as mass culture= kitsch. I say this based on the following excerpts from the book ‘Mass culture’

Clement Greenberg writes that the special aesthetic quality of kitsch is that it “predigests art for the spectators and spares his effort, provides him with a shortcut to the pleasure of art that detours what is necessarily difficult in genuine art”. It is also supported by its ease of production, due to its standardised nature.

The bourgeois thought of science as their familiar instrument. The masses are less confident and more awed in their approach to science. The marvellous is untrammelled by the limits of knowledge