Jawan (film)

Jawan
Error creating thumbnail: File missing Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Atlee
Produced by	Gauri Khan Gaurav Verma
Screenplay by	Atlee S. Ramanagirivasan
Dialogues by	Sumit Arora
Story by	Atlee
Starring	Shah Rukh Khan Nayanthara Vijay Sethupathi
Music by	Anirudh Ravichander
Cinematography	G. K. Vishnu
Edited by	Ruben
Production company	Red Chillies Entertainment
Distributed by	see below
Release date	7 September 2023 (2023-09-07)
Running time	169 minutes
Country	India
Language	Hindi
Budget	₹300 crore
Box office	est. ₹520.86 crore

Jawan (transl. Soldier) is a 2023 Indian Hindi-language vigilante action thriller film co-written and directed by Atlee in his first Hindi film. It is produced by Gauri Khan and Gaurav Verma under Red Chillies Entertainment. The film stars Shah Rukh Khan in a dual role, alongside Nayanthara, Vijay Sethupathi, Deepika Padukone (billed as a special appearance), Priyamani and Sanya Malhotra in supporting roles.

Principal photography commenced in September 2021 with filming taking place in Pune, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Rajasthan and Aurangabad. The film's soundtrack and background score were composed by Anirudh Ravichander, with cinematography by G. K. Vishnu and editing by Ruben.

Jawan was initially planned for release on 2 June 2023, but was postponed due to unfinished post-production work. It was theatrically released on 7 September 2023 in standard, IMAX, 4DX and other premium formats, coinciding with Janmashtami. The film received positive reviews from critics and set several box-office opening records for a Hindi film. Grossing over ₹520.86 crore (US$73 million), it emerged as the fourth highest-grossing Indian film of 2023 and the 27th highest-grossing Indian film.

Plot

Azad is the jailer of a woman's prison in Mumbai, who along with a group of inmates consisting of Lakshmi, Eeram, Ishkra, Kalki, Helena and Janhvi; hijack a Mumbai Metro and negotiates with NSG officer Narmada Rai to send ₹40,000 crores in exchange for the passengers' lives. Kaliee Gaikwad, a global arms dealer, learns that his daughter Alia is also one of the captives and agrees to fund the deal. When Alia questions their motive, Azad reveals his plan of donating the money towards the loan waver of 7 lakh impoverished farmers in the country. Azad and his gang directly transfer the funds into the farmer's bank accounts and escape from the metro.

Azad and his gang kidnaps the Health Minister and demands to initiate better infrastructure at every government hospital in exchange for the Health Minister's life. The infrastructure is immediately initiated in the hospitals, allowing Azad and his gang to escape again after a shootout between Narmada and her team. Meanwhile, Azad meets Narmada and her daughter Suchi, where he and Narmada eventually get married. Soon after their wedding, Narmada finds out about Azad's true identity and confronts him, but Kaliee's brother Manish and his henchmen capture and torture them. However, Azad is saved by his doppelgänger named Vikram. Narmada finds out the identities of Azad's accomplices and confronts them, where she learns about Azad and Vikram's connection.

Past: Vikram is a commando in the Indian Army, who sets out on an operation to hunt down the terrorist group responsible for attacking and killing 40 Indian soldiers. Vikram and his team take down the terrorists, after several casualties that are caused by malfunctioning weaponary. Vikram files a complaint against Kaalie, who was the supplier of the weapons, but Kaalie attacks Vikram and his wife Aishwarya, where he takes Vikram onboard a plane and shoots him to death, while Aishwarya is sentenced to prison for killing three cops, who were on Kaalie's payroll. Afterwards, Vikram is declared as a national traitor. Aishwarya gives birth to their child Azad in prison. When Azad is five-years old, Aishwarya asks him to prove Vikram's innocence and provide justice to the oppressed, before she is hanged to death. Unbeknownst to the world, Vikram survives the attack and loses his memory, where he was rescued by a tribal group and rehabilitated. 30 years later, Vikram is told about Azad by his former army team and sets out to meet him.

Past: Learning about the past, Narmada decides to help Azad and his team. However, Narmada's teammate Irani, who is revealed to be on Kaalie's payroll, tries to kill them; Lakshmi is killed in the resulting crossfire. Azad arrives at the prison and kills Irani in a stampede. Vikram, Azad and his team attack Kaalie's containers, which contain money for the upcoming elections, which will boost Kaalie's political ambitions. Azad manages to steal Kaalie's containers, while Vikram gets captured by Kaalie's henchmen. Azad releases another video and states that he has stolen voting machines and demands to seal 253 factories in the country, responsible for air and water pollution. The factories are sealed by the government. Kaalie learns about Azad's location in the women's prison and a fight ensues, where Vikram finally recovers his memory and helps Azad by hanging Kaalie to death. Few months later, STF officer Madhavan Naik, who is also involved in helping Azad to complete his missions, assigns another mission to Azad, which involves targeting Swiss Banks.

Cast

• Shah Rukh Khan in a dual role as
  • Captain Vikram Rathore, an ex-commando
  • IPS Azad, a women's prison warden.
• Nayanthara as Narmada Rai, chief of Force One
• Vijay Sethupathi as Kaalie Gaikwad, an arms dealer
• Deepika Padukone as Aishwarya Rathore, Vikram's wife (special appearance)
• Priyamani as Lakshmi
• Sanya Malhotra as Dr. Eeram
• Sunil Grover as Irani
• Sanjeeta Bhattacharya as Helena, an ethical hacker
• Girija Oak as Ishkra, an artist
• Lehar Khan as Kalki
• Aaliyah Qureishi as Jahnvi
• Riddhi Dogra as Kaveri
• Mukesh Chhabra as Pappu
• Yogi Babu as Pappu (Tamil version)
• Eijaz Khan as Manish Gaikwad, Kaalie's brother
• Sangay Tsheltrim as Juju
• Seeza Saroj Mehta as Suchi Rai, Narmada's daughter
• Priyansh Vatiani and Arijit Gaurav as Young Azad
• Utsav Narula as Mahaveer Jain
• Viraj Ghelani as Dubey
• Bharat Raj as Irai Anbu
• Kenny Basumatary as Naazir Ahmed
• Jaffer Sadiq as Sudhir
• Naresh Gossain as Agriculture Minister
• Ashwin Kaushal as Health Minister
• Sukhi Garewal as Murad (Voice by Manoj Pandey)
• Abhishek Deswal as Abdul
• Sai Dheena as Sudhir
• Ashlesha Thakur as Alia Gaikwad, Kaalie's daughter
• Smita Tambe as Kalki's mother
• Omkar Das Manikpuri as Kalki's father
• Vivek Raghuvanshi as Commando Alif
• Ravindra Vijay as Mukund Menon, District Collector
• Sharad Vyas as Judge
• Dorendro Loitongbam as Village Physician
• Abiral Limboo as young Juju
• Atlee as himself in the song "Zinda Banda" (cameo appearance)
• Sanjay Dutt as STF officer Madhavan Naik (cameo appearance)

Production

Development

In late 2019, it was rumoured that Shah Rukh Khan would team up with Tamil film director Atlee. Atlee confirmed the project while promoting Bigil. In May 2021, it was reported that the filming would commence soon. The film is produced by Gauri Khan under Red Chillies Entertainment, while Gaurav Verma serves as a co-producer. The company made a public announcement on 3 June 2022, confirming the project. The film is being made on a budget of ₹300 crore.

Atlee co-wrote the film's script along with S. Ramana Girivasan, in his fourth consecutive collaboration with the director. Sumit Arora contributed the dialogues. Atlee further retained most of his norm technicians including cinematographer G. K. Vishnu, editor Ruben, art director T. Muthuraj and stunt director Anal Arasu. Spiro Razatos, Craig Macrae, Yannick Ben, Kecha Khamphakdee and Sunil Rodrigues also were hired as stunt directors. Dance choreographers of the film includes Farah Khan, Vaibhavi Merchant, Shobi and Lalitha.

Casting

Mukesh Chhabra was the casting director. Khan was reported to play a dual role, as father and son, and would be seen in six different looks. Nayanthara was finalised as the female lead opposite Khan, thus marking her Hindi cinema debut. Priyamani, Sunil Grover, Sanya Malhotra and Yogi Babu later joined the cast. Reuniting with Khan after a decade, Babu last acted opposite Khan in Chennai Express (2013) however, he was only present in the Tamil version. Rana Daggubati was offered the antagonist role but declined citing health issues and thus the role went to Vijay Sethupathi. Deepika Padukone joined the cast in August 2022 in Chennai to shoot her special appearance. In September 2022, Vijay was reported to be making a cameo in the film, but later Atlee denied the news clarifying that he himself was making a cameo. In March 2023, Sanjay Dutt joined the cast to shoot for a cameo during an action scene. Allu Arjun was approached to play a cameo but declined the role citing commitments to Pushpa 2.

Filming

File:Pune Metro PCMC.jpg

Part of the film was shot at Pune Metro.

Principal photography commenced in September 2021 in Pune. Some scenes of Jawan were filmed at the Sant Tukaram metro station in Pune from 30 August to 15 September 2021. Filming took place on the Pune metro. The station also appeared in the film's poster where Khan appears to sit at the metro station. It is the first film to be shot at Pune Metro. Khan resumed the shoot in June 2022 in Hyderabad. Shah Rukh Khan and Nayanthara joined the 10–days shoot. Nayanthara joined the Mumbai schedule on 26 June 2022, after her marriage. Some family sequences were shot during this schedule.

In August, the next schedule started in Chennai, where Deepika Padukone shot her cameo part. Later Vijay Sethupathi joined the shoot. Some action sequences between Khan and Sethupathi were taken in this schedule. The song "Zinda Banda" was shot during this schedule, in jail. The song, which shot for 5 days included 1000 dancers, and was choreographed by Shobi Paulraj. The song was also reshot for the Tamil version as "Vandha Edam". A month long Chennai schedule was wrapped on 7 October.

The next schedule was held in Rajasthan, in October. Khan and Nayanthara joined this 20–day schedule. Next schedule was held in February 2023, where Khan shot some chase scenes. Sanjay Dutt joined the shoot on 20 March 2023, to shoot an action-packed cameo. In April 2023, a song titled "Chaleya" featuring Khan and Nayanthara was shot at Mumbai and Bandra–Worli Sea Link. Later the same month, the song "Faraatta" featuring Khan and Deepika Padukone, for her cameo appearance was shot at Film City, Mumbai. Both the songs were choreographed by Farah Khan. In mid July, song titled "Not Ramaiya Vastavaiya" featuring Khan and Nayanthara, choreographed by Vaibhavi Merchant was shot at the Yash Raj Studios in Mumbai.

Post-production

Post-production for the film began by January 2023 and went on for six months as the film involves extensive computer graphics and visual effects. Editing was handled by Ruben. The VFX work of the film is done by Red Chillies VFX. Harry Hingorani served as the visual effects supervisor with Keitan Yadav as the VFX producer of the film. In April, the company hired visual effects technicians to the team. Ken Metzker of Red Chillies Color did the colouring for the film. Kunal Rajan served as the sound designer.

Nayanthara dubbed for her character in early May 2023. Deepa Venkat dubbed for Nayanthara for the Tamil and Telugu versions of the film. Raveena Ravi dubbed for Deepika Padukone for the Tamil and Telugu versions of the film.

The final copy of the film was ready by early August 2023, and was submitted to the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) that month. On 22 August 2023, the film received a U/A certificate from the Censor Board, with a finalised runtime of 169 minutes.

Music

Main article: Jawan (soundtrack)

The soundtrack is composed by Anirudh Ravichander, who would mark his debut as a solo composer in Bollywood, previously having composed a song for David and the background score for Jersey. Initially, A. R. Rahman was reportedly approached by director Atlee to compose for the film. Rahman subsequently declined the offer for reasons unknown, and Anirudh was chosen to compose for the film. The music rights were bagged by T-Series for ₹36 crore, which was a record price for a Hindi album.

The soundtrack consists of seven original songs composed by Anirudh, namely, "Zinda Banda", "Chaleya", "Not Ramaiya Vastavaiya", "Aararaari Raaro", "Jawan Title Track", "Faraatta" and "Chaleya" (Arabic). Lyrics are written by Irshad Kamil and Kumaar.

Marketing

The film's title, along with a glimpse video was released on 3 June 2022. Later the film got postponed and a new release date was announced through a motion poster released on 6 May 2023. A teaser trailer, titled "Jawan Prevue" was released on 10 July 2023. It became the most watched Indian teaser in 24 hours with over 112 million views. Later, the teaser was attached to the prints of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Jailer and Gadar 2 in theatres.

After the song "Zinda Banda" was released in July 2023, the hook step choreographed by Shobi Paulraj and performed by Khan in the music video went viral. Many people have recreated the hook step (signature step) by recording themselves dancing to the song and posting their videos on social media.

As a part of the film's promotions, carried by GM Modular, the marketing team designed the film's posters at the Mumbai Metro and subsequently, at the Kolkata Metro. The official merchandise of Jawan was launched by Fully Filmy on 25 August 2023.

On 30 August 2023, a grand pre-release event for the film took place in Chennai at Sri Sai Ram Engineering College, Chennai where Khan received wishes from Kamal Haasan, and shared anecdotes. Mirchi Vijay and Bhavana Balakrishnan hosted the event. The television streaming rights for the event were acquired by Sun Network. The event was telecasted on Sun TV and Surya TV on 3 September.

The official trailer of the film was unveiled on 31 August 2023. On the same day, Khan arrived in Dubai to celebrate the release of the trailer with the fans and showcased it on the Burj Khalifa. After the release of the film, Google introduced an interactive doodle for the film.

Release

Theatrical

Jawan was theatrically released on 7 September 2023 in standard, IMAX, 4DX and other premium formats in Hindi along with dubbed versions of Tamil and Telugu languages. Earlier the film was scheduled to release on 2 June 2023. Later in May 2023, it was reported that the film is delayed to August 2023. The film was later reported to release on the original release date, However, later it was confirmed that the film will release on 7 September 2023. Jawan is the first Indian film to release in the IMAX Leonberg, the largest cinema theatres in the world. It is also the first Hindi film that released on the same day in Bangladesh.

Jawan premiered on over 10,000 screens worldwide, highest for a Hindi film and one of the highest for an Indian film. In India it released on over 5500 screens and 4500 screens in international markets. In Tamil Nadu it was reported to showcase on over 650 screens and in Kerala version on over 350 screens, highest for a Hindi film in the regions. The early morning shows, were held at 2:15 AM across Bengal.

Jawan set the record for the biggest advance bookings in Hindi cinema, beating the record set by Khan's own Pathaan earlier in the year. Booking sites of multiplex players crashed down due to high traffic.

Distribution

Pen Studios acquired the theatrical rights for North India and West India under the Pen Marudhar Entertainment banner. Sree Gokulam Movies acquired theatrical distribution rights of the film in Tamil Nadu and Kerala for ₹50 crore, and released under Red Giant Movies in Tamil Nadu and Dream Big Films in Kerala. Sri Venkateswara Creations acquired the distribution rights for Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Mysore territory rights have been acquired by Panorama Studios. SVF acquired the theatrical rights for West Bengal. Rajshri Productions distributed the film in Odisha, and Prakash Pictures in Bihar.

The overseas theatrical rights were sold to Yash Raj Films. Home Screen Entertainment bought Singapore distribution rights of the film, while Lighthouse Distribution acquired the distribution rights for Spain. Action Cut Entertainment together with Rongdhonu Group distributed the film in Bangladesh. Friday Entertainment distributed the film in France. Non-theatrical rights of the film were sold for ₹250 crore (US$35 million).

Home media

The digital streaming rights of Jawan were sold to Netflix for ₹120 crore. The satellite rights have been acquired by Zee Network.

Reception

Box office

As of 10 September 2023, Jawan has grossed ₹340.67 crore (US$48 million) in India and ₹180.19 crore (US$25 million) in overseas for a worldwide total of ₹520.86 crore (US$73 million).

On its first day of release, the film's Hindi version netted a record-breaking ₹65.5 crore (US$9.2 million) in India, with a further ₹10 crore (US$1.4 million) from its dubbed Tamil and Telugu versions, for a net total of ₹75.5 crore (US$11 million). Worldwide, all versions grossed ₹129 crore (US$18 million) on the opening day. It overtook Khan's previous release Pathaan to set several opening day records for a Hindi film. In Australia, it became the first Indian film to top the box office, earning AU$ 400k on its first day. On its second day, the Hindi version netted ₹45 crore in India for a total net collection of ₹110 crore. It became the first Hindi film to net over ₹200 crore in 3 days domestically, overtaking Pathaan.

Critical response

Khan's performance received praise from critics

Jawan received positive reviews from critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Jawan has an approval rating of 93% from 14 reviews, with an average score of 7.4/10.

Awarding the film 4 stars out of 5, Sukanya Verma of Rediff.com commended Jawan's political storytelling, writing that it "boldly and directly points fingers at the ineffective government and appeals to recognise the power of the finger and vote". The Indian Express's Shubhra Gupta wrote that the film delivered a timely political message despite being "fashioned as an unabashed massy entertainer". Monika Rawal Kukreja of Hindustan Times termed it a "massy, meaningful actioner". Nandini Ramnath of Scroll.in believed that the film worked primarily due to Khan, writing that his "screen image – expansive, suffused with love, heroic in an old-fashioned way without being aggressively macho, irreverent but also sincere – helps sell a conceit that might have crashed with any other actor". India Today's Tushar Joshi believed that Khan's performance and Atlee's direction had improved upon a typical, Robin Hood-esque story.

Sonil Dedhia of News18 labelled it a masala film, adding that it is an "ambitious vigilante action thriller that plays to the gallery and lives up to the hype. Far-fetched in writing but high on star power and style". Renuka Vyavahare of The Times of India believed that Jawan had more of a story and purpose than Khan's previous release Pathaan. Trade journalist Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama awarded the film 4.5 stars and praised its "superlative performances, thrilling and clap worthy moments, larger-than-life action sequences and a never-before-seen avatar of Shah Rukh Khan". Devesh Sharma of Filmfare noted that the action choreography was "on par with any high grade Hollywood film". Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV rated the film 3.5 stars out of 5 and concluded, "Packed with all the ingredients that you would expect in a high-octane action film, Jawan is a strikingly meta vehicle in which a star communicates directly with his fan base and holds forth on themes that are crying out to be addressed."

Internationally, Manjusha Radhakrishnan of Gulf News compared an ageing Khan to George Clooney, praising the star power of Khan and Nayanthara and the chemistry between Khan and Padukone. Mike McCahill of The Guardian also commended Khan's star power and opined, "Jawan covers a lot of ground in surprising fashion at full throttle – but that’s also a polite way of admitting it’s utterly all over the place." In a negative review, Mint Lounge's Uday Bhatia termed Jawan a "chaotic mess", writing that the film's story did not cohere despite Khan's best efforts.

External links

• Jawan on IMDb
• Jawan at Rotten Tomatoes
• Jawan at Metacritic
• Jawan at Bollywood Hungama