Vidyut Jammwal's Crakk Is A Throwback To The Good Bad Films Of Yore

I have a question: why is Vidyut Jammwal’s new film spelt Crakk like the letter “k” was being distributed for free? I have another question: who are the Jammwalions that the actor has started dedicating his films to? There are some more: why does his accent keep changing throughout the film at the speed of light? (He starts off with a classic tapori accent, going for that aich in every word, before abandoning it.) Why is Amy Jackson speaking Hindi like she is getting her tooth extracted with every line? Why is not one word uttered by Nora Fatehi syncing with the way her mouth is moving? Why is Arjun Rampal?

Now that these are out of the way, let us talk about Crakk. Jammwal’s new film is a wild beast that goes through the runtime doing whatever it wants to do. The Aditya Datt outing is the literal manifestation of “boys just wanna have fun”. Crakk is what happens when the filmmaker colludes with the actor and decides that he will bend every narrative rule to let the latter do what he does best.

Jammwal’s athleticism is common information but for the longest time in his filmography the story (ahem) came in the way. There had to be a build-up for him to flex those muscles, a reason for him to jump from whatever tall building he set his eyes on. With Crakk, which he has also produced, the actor decides to put an end to this pretension. He is finally headlining a film where he can throw his limbs without a solid reason, for he is playing a character who is an extreme sport junkie. The film opens with him walking on a moving train; there is an entire song where he and his elder brother (we will come to this later) jump off every wall they see. Like little children. I must confess I found this honesty touching, even the fact that the actor is really trying to act. Like twisting-his-eyebrows and throwing-punches-in-the-air-when-sad kind of acting.

Make no mistake, Crakk is a bad film. It is unwatchable and unfolds like a parody of itself. There is no logic here and not even a half attempt at it. Jammwal’s character Siddharth and his elder brother Nihaal (played by Ankit Mohan) are fixated with Maidaan, an underground extreme sport competition that is run by Dev (Rampal). The way it works is fairly common. You upload your videos online and Maidaan sends you a letter of confirmation. Like Hogwarts. A very sad looking balloon vendor gives you a metal flower which indicates your admission. Like no school ever.

Maidaan is supposed to be an underground, cultish place (the film mentions “undisclosed location” and then adds ‘Europe’ with an asterisk, like it felt bad for us) which has its own rules. People can die or earn a lot of money. Nihaal died performing a stunt. Siddharth, his younger brother, does not overthink this and goes to Maidaan with a big smile when the same sad balloon vendor comes to him.

But, here’s some story. Dev is also doing shady activities (like straight up making nuclear weapons) within the premise and a police officer (Jackson) is after him. When Siddharth arrives there, he realises his brother was killed under mysterious circumstances and vows revenge — more excuses for some muscle flexing, if ever there was a need.

A lot of the plot is baffling, not least that the final stunt Dev and Siddharth choose to perform when pitted against each other, is cycling. Or that of all the things one can do, Fatehi’s character decides to be an influencer for a place that can do with less attention. Anyway, I am digressing. The point is Crakk contradicts itself freely and ensures that we treat the story as something superfluous (a ‘come for the premise and stay for Jammwal’s abs’ kind of a thing). Like the fact the film hypes up Maidaan as some underground, cultish entity, but it turns out that everyone can watch it on their phones (in a bizarre twist, even Siddharth’s parents get hooked to it, blithely overlooking that their eldest son died there and the younger one might too). Or that there are so many Indians at Maidaan, and Dev speaks in Hindi so freely (often without a translating headphone) like it was taking place at Borivali. I am also yet to understand what was the source of the paw marks on Bijay Anand’s face (he plays Mark, one of the founders of Maidaan) ... my guess is he pissed off a cat. But I am digressing, again.

Crakk is a bad film that is 20 minutes too long. But it also made me nostalgic of the kind of unproblematic bad Hindi films there used to be before propaganda took the front seat. Throw in a villain with a daddy issue, put some white people (preferably Russians) into the mix, and get an actor with abs. It was a fairly simple formula. Crakk subscribes to that (it is a relief, for instance, to see a villain who does not have kohl in his eyes) and we probably have the Jammwalions to thank for it.