A heavily kohl-eyed, almost-caricaturish terrorist stops beating up our hero into a pulp when realization dawns upon him that this is indeed the dreaded hero of the story. “Pathaan tu (Pathaan you)…?” queries our cartoonish bad guy, SRK (Shah Rukh Khan) teasingly declares, “...zinda hai (are still alive)”, the entire hall erupts in whistles and hoots. Thus takes off Siddharth Anand’s Pathaan, written by Shridhar Raghavan and Abbas Tyrewala, officially kick-starting the first spyverse of Bollywood that retroactively now fits in three previous YRF (Yash Raj Films) spy thrillers. This feels momentous to all Bollywood fans worldwide because it is. This officially brings in some of the biggest superstars of the industry under the same umbrella. This seems like a significant ushering in of a new era in Bollywood because it potentially is.
The only way to experience the high-octane, somewhat convoluted, yet fun banger that is Pathaan is by watching it in a movie theater full of old fans and new that SRK has accumulated over a spectacular career spanning 35 whopping years. Pathaan is not just a raucous delight, it is a welcome vehicle for the Badshah of Bollywood, who is returning to a lead role four years after the debacle that was Zero. This spy thriller doesn’t make the mistake of hiding SRK the superstar. Indeed, Pathaan pivots itself around it and lands a blockbuster, defying all the targeted off-screen slaughter to deliver a record-breaking film, reviving a beleaguered industry that barely gave any big hits in 2022.
Pathaan plays to its strengths to deliver a commercial hit that rides seamlessly on the wave of interconnected mega-franchise films in Bollywood.
How Pathaan Builds the Spyverse with a Formula
Following in the footsteps of the other retrofitted spyverse thrillers, Ek Tha Tiger (There Once Was A Tiger), Tiger Zinda Hai (Tiger Is Alive), and War, Pathaan also revolves around secret agents who are doing more for international religious harmony than some of our elected leaders.
In 2019, the Indian Government revoked Article 370, which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir, an Indian Union Territory that has long been the cause of a historic (and frequently bloody) dispute between India and its neighboring countries, Pakistan and China. Pathaan takes this pivotal moment of our very real history and builds the most quintessentially masala action flick of our times in the dramatically broad brushstrokes we have to afford popcorn flicks like these.
An extremist Pakistani army general, who comically but zealously says things like “We will bring India to its knees,” takes this act as an invitation of war. He joins hands with a rogue mercenary, who becomes hellbent on unleashing biowarfare on the planet for his own personal vendetta. The film stars SRK as our titular Pathaan, a RAW (foreign intelligence agency of India) field agent. Deepika Padukone plays his counterpart and foe-turned-ally, Rubina Mohsin, aka Rubai, an ex-ISI agent (intelligence agency of Pakistan). Despite a contentious past, they have to team up against Jim (played by John Abraham), the aforementioned rogue agent and the leader of the mercenary terrorist group Outfit X. We also have Ashutosh Rana playing Colonel Sunil Luthra and acting as another connecting thread in the spyverse. Abraham, who tends to have the most fun playing dark characters, would be a worthy opponent that can come back despite the fate he seemingly meets.
Pathaan gets the pulse of the world-building needed to set up a Universe just right.
This is a film where the formula is done well, at par with the likes of MCU, which has set a precedent of multiversal success stories. But what sets Pathaan apart from any Hollywood action extravaganza is its reliance on Indian religious and identity politics. In SRK’s Pathaan, we get a hero who has a very Muslim name (even though Hindu Pathaan is an identity that has been claimed by many in the past). But it is an adopted name as he is an orphan. It is emphatically mentioned and underlined many times that Pathaan does not have a religious identity that surpasses his humanity and his ultimate devotion to his country. He is "desh ka beta (the nation’s son)." Like the predecessors in this series, Pathaan also caters to a secular lens but of course, they can only dish out politics lite.
This emphasis mirrors SRK’s own assertion of his public brand image over the years, his silent rebellion. We are living in a divisive country, where the fringe elements have finally come out of the fringes. They have questioned the success of Muslim actors in a country they want to see as a Hindu rashtra (Hindu-first nation). But SRK has maintained that he is an artist above everything else, and thereby who he represents to the audience surpasses the trifling inconsequentiality of religious discord.
Pathaan’s Worldbuilding and Camaraderie
While SRK gets most of the cheers from the crowd, he doesn’t hesitate to share the glory with his co-actors. This is a worldbuilding that happens with a lot of camaraderie. Like Tiger Zinda Hai’s Zoya (Katrina Kaif), Padukone’s Rubai gets her fair share of cheers and whistles as she beats down the baddies, does gravity-defying stunts, and drinks like a fish. She gets to save the day along with Pathaan, but of course, he is still our main guy. He saves everybody. But when he needs saving along the way, we get one of the biggest moments of Bollywood onscreen – Salman Khan (the eponymous Tiger in this spyverse) swoops down to some even louder cheers.
Salman and Shah Rukh are electric together.
They began their careers in Bollywood around the same time. Their stars also rose in tandem. Until personal fallout led to the two refusing to share screen space ever again. Seeing them together is a treat for fans. It's not just a full blast of nostalgia but also a bridge to the future. What is to come is exciting.
They bring in their signature humor and wit as they split a strip of painkillers to tend to their aging and ailing bodies after a harrowing chase sequence. It’s a riot. They are no longer the fit young ingénues ready to conquer the world solo. They are nearly 60, and their ripped bods are mere smokescreens, but they know their illustrious cinematic mantles are way too heavy to be passed onto the next generation yet. A lot is riding on them, the first line of avengers. So they will be back in Tiger 3, Pathaan 2, and War 2.
You can catch a screening of Pathaan in a theater or wait till April 25 for it to stream on Prime Video.