Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015)

There really couldn’t be a better movie for Salman Khan right now than this. See? He’s the sort of fellow who never tells a lie, prays a lot, and risks sneaking across the Pakistani border to reunite a little girl with her family, not someone who gets drunk and runs over homeless people. Anyway, I’ve come to terms with Salman Khan the person versus Salman Khan the actor, and I do enjoy the latter quite a lot. It’s just that this film, and the winning image of a little girl riding on Salman's back is awfully well-timed, coincidence or not.

It’s also really sweet and well worth the watch. So there’s this little girl in Pakistan, Shahida (Harshaali Malhotra, the most adorable child artist I’ve seen in, like, ever) who likes goats, cricket, and wandering off where no one can find her. She’s also mute. Her mother takes her to a shrine in Delhi to pray that she will speak, but on the way back she wanders off the train and is left behind in India.




Not knowing anyone, she attaches herself to Pawan (Salman) who likes to take selfies at religious events. He has a good heart, but still goes on a fairly typical hero’s journey as he tries to avoid responsibility for this little girl, who he names Munni. Pawan is an innocent sort of guy, but not innocent enough to not freak out when he figures out that she's Muslim, and from Pakistan. It takes his girlfriend, Rasika (Kareena Kapoor Khan) sitting him down and telling him that he's better than that, and to go into the mosque right now and be nice to Munni.

Soon he realizes that no one besides him has her best interests at heart (and some well-deserved thrashing commences), so naa passport, naa visa, he heads with Shahida to the Pakistani border. He sneaks under the fence, but refuses to go farther until seeking permission from the border guards, even when they are like “look, we’re going on our rounds, and if you’re not here when we come back, we won’t know where you’re gone, for crying out loud, just go already.” It is then very surprising when the Pakistani government decides he’s a spy. But he’s helped by a small-time reporter, Chand Nawab (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) who luckily knows how to lie and keep them safe. He stuffs Pawan in a burka to shut him up as they search for Shahida’s family.

Movies can take you on a lot of different journeys. Sometimes fun, sometimes scary, sometime challenging, but this one is just... nice. It gently takes you along and makes you feel like you belong. Chand Nawab's videos of Pawan and Shahida's search go viral because they echo our emotional stake in the story. And when crowds of people from both Pakistan and India show up at the border to support Pawan's return, we're right there with them, even if we are thinking that while there might be international borders where it would totally work out for a bunch of people to show up and get an undocumented viral video star across, perhaps the India/Pakistan border is not one of those places.

There are really not very many more ways to say "this is a very enjoyable movie." It is. The scenery, the tiny adorable child, Salman and Kareena doing a chicken dance, and a warm and fuzzy message about international relations.