Jawaani Jaaneman movie review: The Saif Ali Khan-starrer is a fun watch

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Written by Shubhra Gupta | New Delhi | Updated: January 31, 2020 3:08:49 pm

Jawaani Jaaneman movie review: Saif Ali Khan is clearly having a blast.

Jawaani Jaaneman movie cast: Saif Ali Khan, Alaya F, Kubbra Sait, Kumud Mishra, Chunky Panday
Jawaani Jaaneman movie director: Nitin Kakkar
Jawaani Jaaneman movie rating: 2.5 stars

Jazz aka Jasvinder Singh is living it up in London town, alternating between being a near-broke broker and a cool swinger making moves on hot babes. He is single, and man, does he mingle. And then one fine evening, as he tries his trusty pick-up lines on a girl young enough to be his daughter, he learns that he is, in fact, a dad. Whoopsie.

Don’t worry, I am not giving anything away. If you watched the trailer, you will know that this is the nub of Jawaani Jaaneman, which deposits Saif Ali Khan back into his comfort zone, of the eternal playboy pushing desperately back at advancing middle-age and grey locks, whose revolving bedmates are the only high points of his bench-pressing, weight-lifting, booze-swilling bachelor life.

This familiar character which Khan has made his own (Ole ole, that song, pops up as a reminder of how long he’s been at it), is given something extra here: a ready-made daughter whom he didn’t know existed till she brings him down to earth with demands of a DNA test, locking him into reluctant paternity, and the potential softening of his edges. No question of him blowing her off permanently: this is a Bollywood movie filled with the usual suspects – daddyji, mummyji (Jalal), bhaiyya (Mishra) and bhabhi, so clearly Jazz has no choice but to embrace his new-found papa-hood.

There’s a thread justifying Jazz’s broker-hood, involving cockney-accented property dealers, panoramic vistas of the Thames, and booze-swilling old ladies unwilling to budge from their Hounslow apartments, which acts as buffer between the real deal: the growing awareness of the importance of ‘family values’ in a man who equates marriage with ‘death’’