Tubelight Movie Review: This Salman Film Offers You Lots Of 'Yakeen' But Fails To Move Your Hearts!

Plot

The film opens with a glimpse into Laxman Kumar Bisht's life (Salman Khan) and how his dim-wittedness earned him the nickname 'Tubelight'. Next, we get to see his endearing camaraderie with his younger brother Bharat (Sohail Khan).

The duo are each other's support system since they lost their parents at a very young age. Life's merry for them until Bharat gets selected to join the Indian army during a recruitment drive in their town. Soon, he is assigned to join the Indo-Sino border where there is a heavy tension mounting between India and China.

While Bharat is busy at war, Laxman's town sees the arrivals of two new people- Le Ling (Zhu Zhu) and her little son Guan (Matin Rey Tangu) who are Indians with Chinese origins. Meanwhile, a war is waged at the Indo-Sino border and Bharat goes missing.

Later, taking a cue from Mahatma Gandhi's principle of having faith in your belief, Laxman befriends Guan and Le Ling and slowly realizes that they too, have lost someone in that same war.

Will Laxman reunite with his brother or will the war shatter his life into pieces with the lose of his loved one?

Direction

'Love conquers all'- Kabir Khan's Bajrangi Bhaijaan revolved around this theme and his latest outing Tubelight too belongs to a similar territory. Unfortunately this time, his treatment to the film looks superficial and it simply fails to connect on an emotional note.

Tubelight suffers from a painfully slow narrative that just keeps dragging on and on until it meets its fateful end in the form of one of the most cliched climaxes in Bollywood. By the time, the film-maker makes his point, it's a tad late and you find yourself already drowning in the puddles of 'kya tumhe yakeen hai' in almost every character's dialogues.

In a nutshell, Tubelight isn't one of the most memorable films from Kabir's stable!

Performances

Salman Khan is the only flickering ray of hope in this damp squib. It's quite heartening to watch him play a man-child with such innocence and vulnerability.

It takes a lot of guts for an actor who is known to be an epitome of action, to strip off his masochist image and play a complete antithesis. Yes, there is a scene or two where he goes a bit overboard with emotions but then you tend to overlook them as he gives you plenty of moments to rejoice in the film.

Sohail Khan plays what he is in real life- a caring bhai and that's exactly what awaits for you in Tubelight.

Chinese actress Zhu Zhu looks breathtakingly beautiful and delivers her Hindi dialogues with almost perfecto minus any accent! Matin Rey Tangu is a brilliant discover. We so wished he had more screen time!

Late. Om Puri's character has nothing significant about it but yes, it's high on preachiness for sure! Barring a scene or two, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayub fails to make a mark.

Even Shahrukh Khan's cameo has nothing much to add to the film.

Technical Aspects

Aseem Merchant's lens have done complete justice to the picturesque locations. Rameshwar. S. Bhagat's editing is decent. Had the narration been pacier with a little more meat in the plot, Tubelight would have been a different film altogether.

Music

Except for the Radio song and Naach Meri Jaan, Pritam fails to deliver a memorable soundtrack. The songs flow seamlessly with the narrative of the film but falters when it comes to being standalone.

Verdict

There's a dialogue in the film which goes like- "Yakeen ek tubelight ki tarah hota hai...der se jalta hai...lekin jab jalta hai, toh full light kar deta hai." Unfortunately, this doesn't hold true for Salman Khan's Eid release. Tubelight takes its own sweet time to flicker, but then barely lasts to shine bright.