Tubelight

TUBELIGHT is a story about a man's unshakeable belief. Based on the adage, 'Faith can move mountains', the film revolves around the life of a simpleton named Laxman Singh Bisht (Salman Khan). Because of his exceedingly gullible nature, he gets nicknamed as 'tubelight', thanks to his inability to grasp, understand and analyse things like others. The story starts off with a narration by Laxman, wherein he takes the audiences through his childhood to adulthood. While the world doesn't take him seriously, the one man who always stands by Laxman and has complete faith in him is his younger brother Bharat Singh Bisht (Sohail Khan). One day, in the wake of the Indo-China war, the Indian Army invites applications from young Indians to join the army and serve the nation at the time of crisis. While Laxman gets rejected outright, Bharat gets chosen to be a part of the Indian army to go to the border to fight against the Chinese invasion. Life falls apart for Laxman when he gets to know that there is no contact with Bharat and that he may have died in the war. That's when Banney chacha (the late Om Puri) tells Laxman to have faith that his brother Bharat will return. Does Laxman Singh Bisht's faith fight the test of time, does Bharat Singh Bisht return back home safely, and what happens ultimately of the Indo-China war is what forms the rest of the film. While the promos of TUBELIGHT simply 'lightened' up everyone's excitement about the film, the film fails to live upto its title and eventually falls flat completely. The film's story (Kabir Khan) is raw, extremely half-baked and totally convoluted. The film's screenplay (Kabir Khan, Parveez Shaikh) is very convenient and rests on a wafer thin plot that gets stretched way too long, thus, spoiling the film's novelty in a big way. The screenplay seems to have been born out of convenience rather than conviction. Even though the film has been based on the adage 'Faith can move mountains', TUBELIGHT just does not hold any kind of solid content to mirror the same. The film is not at all convincingly made in the context of a backdrop of a war as it lacks the emotional connect with the audiences. The film's dialogues (Manurishi Chadha) are just about average and very much unlike a typical 'Salman Khan film'.

The Story has been credited to be based on The Little Boy and adapted to Hindi by Kabir Khan and Parvez Shaika with the help of Manurishi in the dialogues department. For me the story is about an over-grown man- child Laxman Singh Bisht's tussle with his low self-esteem and lack of confidence. Well, that's like Forrest Gump who is going through an identity crisis, and instead of people saying 'Run Forrest Run…', this one has 'Jal Ja.. Jal ja…tubelight… jal ja…' After the first act, the film starts echoing with the whole theme of Yakeen ki taqat (Faith can move mountains) which instead of inspiring, might end up depressing the viewer by the end of the film. However, the picturesque location and amazing cinematography and background score will keep you glued to the seat. This is the whole issue about the movie. While writing Tubelight Movie Review, I am really not going to give away what is in it, because if you leave out the Chinese family, the film will still be alive, because they are just there. The film falls flat in the second act, and the rest of the thing is just predictable.

After a long time we have a Salman Khan movie that has the main character portrayed in a very boring, over the top and irritating way. It has a very thin plot and the movie lacks soul. The only saving grace are the beautiful visuals and a decent act by all the others involved. Most of the emotional scenes come across as unbearably farcical, crippled by what is possibly the worst performance of Salman's career. The problem of the movie seems to be Salman himself as he tries really hard to come off as slow-witted but the effort falls flat on its face. Although the movie has a good message to convey but it hardly gets conveyed. The songs tend to slow the movie down even further. Really disappointed!!!!