Pathaan The BlockBuster

Pathaan, starring Shah Rukh Khan, broke box office records. According to data provided by SRK’s manager Pooja Dadlani, the movie’s global gross is Rs 1000 crore. According to the billboard, Pathaan had the “biggest grossing opening weekend in Indian film.” and certainly Pathaan Breaks All Box Office Records.

According to the data breakdown, the movie earned a total of Rs 1005 crore ($140 Million ) in the domestic market. Gross receipts from overseas sales total Rs. 400 crore.

The trade and the public were equally astounded by Pathaan’s inaugural weekend. According to Bollywood Hungama, the Hindi film KGF 2 with Yash as the lead managed to earn Rs 193.99 crore during its four-day opening weekend before this one. Sultan, starring Salman Khan, debuted to an opening weekend gross of Rs 180.36 crore. War, the preceding film starring Siddharth Anand, debuted to a gross of Rs 166.25 crore over the same period despite having a Rs 50 crore plus opening day.

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Shah Rukh Khan as well as another superstar of his period, let’s call him Bhaijaan, accept their advancing years in Pathaan, which is arguably the best action film Shah Rukh Khan has ever made. Both of them are aware that 30 years is plenty time to leave a lasting legacy, despite their soreness and aches. They have also swapped a strip of pills. They dismiss one possible heir after another with the thought, “Who next?”

We, the audience, are grinning broadly yet swaying uncomfortably in our chairs. That exact same conversation has taken place in our homes, on Twitter, and occasionally on newspaper pages. We have finished writing their obituaries, accepted their official eulogies, and acknowledged the end of the Mega Superstar Period in Bollywood. They are the last of a rapidly extinct breed, and their time is soon running out. Tick, tick, tick.

These surreal moments are what you will remember and take away from a movie that is one action set-piece after another, on trains and with jetpacks, on polar ice shelves and on top of trucks in cities with skyscrapers. Even if they are entertaining, the vehicle chases, swerving helicopters (this movie really loves its choppers), and zipping gunfire are left behind in the plush theatre darkness. But it is a topic for another day and another essay. The action parts are so regular that they can get tedious.

Let’s concentrate on the Badshah and only him. Shah Rukh dominates the screen with his rippling muscles, pecs, and eight-pack. He feels and appears larger. Even those who grew up with Raj-Rahul have no issue accepting him as the man who can easily tear your spine in two and seduce you with those liquid eyes. At 57, becoming an action star wouldn’t have been simple, but during the past ten years, his romance with us has experienced its fair share of ups and downs, with more downs than ups. His core audience has recently begun to question him because of recent lacklustre movies that attempted to capitalise only on his superstardom.

Distance made hearts grow fonder over these four years. Despite all the rhetoric of change, Shah Rukh evolved in Pathaan rather than changing; he kept the values he holds dear and improved upon them. The eight-packs and the rough exterior with a soft chocolate centre underneath them are both attractive. Early on in the movie, a character states of Shah Rukh Khan 3.0, “Humein laga Pathaan mar gaya par woh to nayi kitab likh raha tha (We had written off Pathaan, but he was writing a new chapter)”.

The movie is both a show of faith to those who love him and a response to the vicious hostility he has faced over the past few years in a highly divisive nation. He says, “Khauf logon ko andha kar deta hai (fear makes people blind),” possibly referring to the hatred directed at him due to the dread of the “other.” Despite going by the moniker Pathaan, he is an atheist. He was given a name and an identity out of pure love after being found inside a movie theatre (is there any more theatrical a tale than that?).

Eventually the take-away from Pathaan is that if you make a good movie, people will watch it. A star is not a mere Hindu or muslim, he’s a person who gives hope and encouragement to his fans and instills good values. Shahrukh is not Badshah of bollywood because he’s a muslim, he’s Badshah becauseof his humbleness, his talent and the purity and conviction with which he plays his charectors in movies. He lives in the hearts of his fans and he justifies his throne by his on-screen presence and dialogue delivery in Pathaan.

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**Picture and Videos courtesy YRF Films via Youtube