Bhaiyya Ji: Manoj Bajpayee Is Unwatchable In This Mess Of A Film

APOORV SINGH KARKI's Bhaiyya Ji is what happens when a film is convinced that it can pull off anything if it is led by a good actor. It is what happens when a good actor is convinced that he can pull off anything because of his meticulous craft. It is what happens when his meticulous craft had elevated a half-decent film in the past which, it turns out, gaslit the director into believing that he made something great and he can do it again. 

To say Karki’s film is unwatchable is to put things too mildly. It is to overlook the filmmaker's absolute disregard for people’s time, energy and money. It is to also ignore the fact that he took one of the finest actors of this generation (make that two) and made him look the most awkward he has looked in ages, pulling off a feat many would think was impossible. To say Karki’s film is unwatchable is to treat it as a misfire when in reality, it is a mess that is irredeemable in all respects. 

While watching Bhaiyya Ji, I tried imagining all the different ways Karki, who previously worked with Manoj Bajpayee in the middling Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai (2023), must have tried convincing the actor to do the film. I was at a loss because everything in the film screams unreal, and not in a good way. In a year filled with Hindi films with dodgy VFX, I have yet to come across a crow that looks as fake as the one in Bhaiyya Ji, a fire that looks more harmless than in Bhaiyya Ji, a villain more toothless (Suvinder Vicky embarrassing in a role he should have rejected even in his dreams) than the one in Bhaiyya Ji, a plot more jaded than the one in Bhaiyya Ji and actors more disparate in their tonalities than in the one in Bhaiyya Ji. As a freelancer who spends most of her days hoping she hears back from editors, I want to hear Karki’s pitch because honestly, this feels like an achievement. 

Take, for instance, the way the film has designed mythology about its central character, Ram Charan Tripathi (Bajpayee), a Robin Hood-like figure who retreats into the world of crime after a personal tragedy, not with images but with words. After Ram Charan’s younger brother is killed in New Delhi by the son of a goon (Jatin Goswami moving from one set to another, portraying the same role), he rechristens himself as Bhaiyya Ji and embarks on a bloodthirsty journey to kill the perpetrators. But here’s the catch: for a film named after him, Bhaiyya Ji spends most of the screen time lying injured. It is others — his henchmen, the old men from his village, the woman he is supposed to get married to, Mansi (Zoya Hussain wasted in a shoddily written role) — who take turns to save him. Halfway through the outing, I narrowed my eyes and tried reading it as some sort of subversion but it held no water because even though the film is ill-equipped, it is explicitly designed as a star vehicle. Thus, as Bhaiyya Ji lies hurt and tired, we have men who spend all their screen time waxing eloquent on how brave and vengeful he is. There is a cop who literally pees in his pants (yes, that happened), men who walk back a few steps by his impact even as Bajpayee stands looking really out of place. 

There is also the whole bizarre logic of time and space. Some scenes follow no chronology of time (in one scene we see Goswami’s character walking into the hideout of Bhaiyya Ji and in the very next we see him still on his way). The narrative is also supposed to take place in Bihar (where Bhaiyya Ji is from) and Delhi, where he goes to exact revenge. It is quite some distance but characters in the film traverse it like they are going to Juhu from Andheri (although given how badly the roads in Mumbai are dug up, going even that distance takes more time). 

At some level, the film could have worked if the characters committed to the campiness written into the writing and visual design. But each behaves like they are in a different film. Bajpayee flits between being excessive and unwatchable, Hussain is stranded with a gun, and Suvinder Vicky spends most of the time smirking. It is only Vipin Sharma as a corrupt cop who gives in and is the most watchable. He divulges information without any force and stays away from the proceedings as much as possible as if he didn’t want to spend an extra minute than what was required. Same. He is the only one who sees through the joke of it all. He knows that Karki’s Bhaiyya Ji should not have happened but now that it has, the least one can do is have fun.