Not even a flicker here

Film reviews

Tubelight
Hindi (U)**
Cast: Salman Khan, Sohail Khan, Zhu Zhu, Matin Rey Tangu, Om Puri
Director: Kabir Khan

Salman stretches his arms, bends and contorts his face like a constipated soul on the commode.
No bowel trouble here. It’s his plain superman position to put an end to the India-China war! Why not, even Om Puri uncle has told him that faith can move mountains!

So there stands (or sits) our bulked-up hero every morning, looking at the Aksai Chin mountains, trying to bring back his brother (the doubly bulked-up Sohail Khan) from the battlefield.

Tubelight is a such a damp log that even a raging forest fire can’t ignite a flicker out of it. Director Kabir Khan had struck a heart-warming chord with his Indo-Pak tale of Bajrangi Bhaijaan, but this one about our eastern neighbour doesn’t even move a muscle, let alone a mountain.

Salman plays a man-child mocked by everyone in the village for his tubelight-like late awakening. But he gets his quota of confidence from a magician (surprise cameo) who uses him in a trick to move a bottle. There on, Mr Khan goes about trying his superpowers to bring world peace. And that brings to the picture a ‘chini’ mother-son duo (Zhu Zhu and Matin Rey Tangu) who becomes the villagers’ target during the 1962 war.

Salman’s efforts to bridge the gap seem laboured most of the time. His little co-star does a far better job. Even Sohail Khan comes across as a natural.