Bawaal Movie Review: Varun Dhawan-Janhvi Kapoor film is neither a meditation on love nor war

Old songs are blaring in the background, the screen is awash in black and white; the stage is set for lead star Varun Dhawan to make a Bollywood-style entry, which he does. The start is not novel, but as Dhawan's character Ajju/Ajay keeps reminding his listeners, I try to watch Bawaal with an 'open mind.'

The Nitesh Tiwari directorial positions Varun's Ajay as a high school History teacher who is actually a cheat and has deep insecurities about his position in society. At school, he does not know what he is doing -- much like the makers of the movie -- so he often wastes his students' time and fails to answer their questions (which becomes the catalyst to propel the narrative forward at one point).

Watch the trailer of Bawaal here:

For Ajju, his image is everything and he does whatever he can in order to protect that, which includes marrying Janvhi Kapoor's character Nisha, who is drastically opposite to Ajju. Nisha is an honest, determined, grade A student of life who undergoes a transformation after she comes to know the truth about Ajju ji.

With a story by Ashwiny Iyer, and a screenplay written by not one, but four people (Nitesh Tiwari, Piyush Gupta, Nikhil Mehrotra and Shreyas Jain), Bawaal still fails to come up with an engaging premise. The World War II angle, which created genuine intrigue in the trailer, ends up as a hackneyed storytelling device here, and so does the use of black-and-white imagery.

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Manoj Pahwa and Janhvi Kapoor are credible in the parts they play here, but how much can you really do when the source material is so generic and sweeping? The dialogues and most scenes showing the 'middle-class mentality' of Ajju and co try to be relatable but are actually quite cliched.

The war and what it does to people, that effort by the director to show its futility is admirable, but why would anyone watch Bawaal for a lesson on World War II when there are multiple well-made Hollywood features based around the same subject, that do a much better job of it? Instead, if the focus was strictly on the relationship of Ajju and Nisha, we could have actually had a decent relationship drama as a consequence, because one knows Nitesh Tiwari is certainly capable of better things. After all, he did direct Aamir Khan's massive Dangal.

The cinematography by Mitesh Mirchandani is fine, but does not really stand out. Again, the blame here lies with the story; different departments of cinema can only harmonise perfectly when the foundation is strong. The choice to intersperse black-and-white images in the film is questionable -- whether it was done to symbolise a historical period, a mere flashback or the imagination of Ajju -- never comes to light .

The music by Mithoon, Tanishk Bagchi and Akashdeep Sengupta is mediocre at best; the only track that was a sweet surprise was Kausar Munir's 'Dil Se Dil Tak,' sung by Laqshay Kapoor and Suvarna Tiwari.

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The acting, as aforementioned, was a let down, especially by Varun, who we know has an 'October' in him. Sure, this is a different plot and he perhaps needed to resort to different tools in his box. But hamming during emotional sequences, and shedding such obviously disingenuous tears during a sensitive portion? Unexpected and insincere.

Saddled by the weight to be more than just your average romantic drama, Bawaal staggers throughout the duration of the film and ultimately ends on an all too predictable note with nothing new to add to the conversation about either war or love.

2 out of 5 stars for Bawaal.