Today, on the auspicious occasion of Raksha Bandhan, Aamir Khan and his team of brain-dead lackeys have released a lackluster third-rate copy of Forrest Gump, yes Forrest Gump, a movie released in 1994 is being remade in 2022, that’s reason enough to ignore it, but let’s do it anyways.
It has been named “Laal Singh Chaddha”, nope, nothing clever about it, because even the title is a cheap copy, the real one was called Forrest Gump because that was the protagonist’s full name and that is exactly what Urduwood has done, they based the name of the movie on the name of the protagonist just like Hollywood without even trying to do it in their own way, talk about creativity?
Wondering why? Don’t worry, because upon watching this frivolous movie the only thing you’ll end up wondering about is why is Aamir Khan so passionate about ruining classics?
Right from the get-go, one thing becomes crystal clear, it's that Aamir Khan, the Rahul Gandhi of Bollywood has no idea what does the term “moderate intellectual disability” mean, his idea of being a low IQ individual is being a crazy retarded drug infested circus joker who smiles in a weird way while making odd grimaces and gestures, while Forrest was an eccentric but lovable character, Laal Singh is just someone you’d want to slap across the face. As a student of psychology let me make something clear, if you have an IQ of 75, your life will be more or less normal, while you might experience a certain level of difficulty in ordinary everyday things, you will be able to manage your life pretty decently, the one thing you’ll certainly not do is display symptoms of autism and schizophrenia clubbed together. This movie is a disgrace to the entire field of psychology and decades of psychological research. Did they not talk to a psychologist to learn about the symptoms of a moderately low IQ individual? Or did they just half-assed it and went ahead assuming that no one will notice?
This movie also lacks any sense of direction, unlike the real Forrest Gump, where each character has its own story and a trajectory worth witnessing, in this Urduwood rendition, everything is just upfront and binary, either you’re a normal human being with an average IQ score or just a batshit crazy person. According to them if a man has low IQ, then he’ll act like a joker, if there’s a Pakistani, then he has to be better than the Indians and if there’s a useless love interest, it has to be Kareena Khan, their hinduphobia is so apparent that you might feel like leaving the theatre within the first 50 minutes. Atul Kulkarni, who is the writer of this movie, yes you heard that right, a straight up “ctrl c, ctrl v” movie also has a writer, and boy does he write, I mean why does he write? People like him shouldn’t even be allowed to write their board exams.
Moving forward, no character development and no scope of attachment with them either, whereas in the “real” movie, each character will make you feel something, not necessarily positive but something at the very least, in Laal Singh Chaddha, the only emotion you’ll feel is utter disgust on your own self for spending money to watch this hot piece of garbage. Whilst Forrest is a slightly awkward but a seemingly innocent and loving character, Laal Singh is just a straight up goofball who smiles like joker would upon learning that batman is dead.
Another glaring and the most problematic issue is Urduwood’s blatant Hinduphobia, which presents itself in the form of a subtle propaganda and a preachy attitude directed towards the Hindus specially. Aamir’s character is heckled and bullied by his own army mates, but a Pakistani Soldier aka Pakistani Terrorist is the only one who understands his pain and shows genuine empathy to him. Also, who the hell sells Golgappas in the train? Or is this some special train reserved specifically for Aamir Khan?
Lastly, I would like to say that Aamir ruined Memento is 2008 and 14 years later he is back and boy is he back!