Varun Dhawan’s Baby John reveals how stardom can be both a blessing and a curse for a mass entertainer

After all, most masala films are a spectacle of stardom. A star flexing his presence to ignite cheers from the masses. And much of your experience hinges on where you watch them, and with whom. In a theater brimming with die-hard fans, you might find yourself swept away, loving a film you know offers little beyond that electric fervor. In mass films, this dynamic intensifies. They transcend the masala entertainer, diving headfirst into hero worship. Everything — the plot, the world, the mythos — exists to amplify the star, ensuring his presence feels less human, more divine. It’s a spectacle of devotion, built entirely around him. These films, then, become more than cinema. They’re a sacred dialogue between a star and their fan constituents. It’s a kind of darshan, where the star graces the screen, not breaking the fourth wall, but speaking directly to his people. Every frame feels alive with that exchange, leaving you to wonder: Is it the star shaping the character, or the character reshaping the star?

 

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Theri is a textbook example of this phenomenon. A quintessential mass film crafted to harness the unmatched frenzy of Thalapathy Vijay’s stardom. It understood him innately, as if his presence and the film were inseparable, like a fish to water. He towered over the narrative, his aura far outshining the story itself. The film existed as a vehicle for his stardom, a stage for him to flex his charisma and command. So, when remaking it for a Hindi audience, the choice of lead became paramount. You needed someone as dynamic as Vijay. Someone whose pull was magnetic, whose aura could render plot contrivances invisible. The hero had to be invincible, capable of sweeping the audience off their feet and making them fall in love all over again. The makers found their answer in Varun Dhawan. Or so they thought.

Varun Dhawan’s career so far has been a fascinating blend of choices. For every brainless commercial comedy, he’s delivered a gripping Badlapur, proving what he’s capable of when he tries. For every breezy rom-com, he’s given us a contemplative October, showing his softer, nuanced side. And for every predictable turn, he’s embraced risk with films like Bhediya and Sui Dhaaga: Made in India. The one frontier he hadn’t ventured into was the realm of a full-blown mass actioner. With Baby John, he makes his first voyage — only to reveal he isn’t quite ready to captain such a ship. It’s not about his talent, but his aura. Mass films don’t just need actors; they need idols. These spectacles thrive on fanatical devotion. And Varun lacks that divine magnetism. He doesn’t have the mythos that electrifies the screen or the cult-like fandom to transform applause into an anthem. So instead of adoration, there is only deafening silence.

 

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It isn’t entirely his fault. The real culprit lies in the text. A framework that fails not just him, but the audience, director Kalees, and producer Atlee, who helmed the original Theri. This is a script sculpted for a star, not for someone striving to become one. And without the gravitational pull of a true blue mass hero, the entire structure collapses like a house of cards. What emerges in the wreckage is a glaring truth: The filmmaking itself offers no sanctuary. Dhawan is given no time to cultivate his mythos, no space to let his presence simmer and rise. The narrative unfolds with neither patience nor nuance. Its structure — both in scripting and editing — forsakes the art of build-up, delivering nothing but payoffs. Gone are the micro-moments that ground a story. Instead, the film indulges in relentless macro flourishes, each more amplified than the last. Transitions are sacrificed for crude jump cuts, resolutions arrive almost as quickly as conflicts, and connective tissue is discarded for a cascade of disconnected highlights. The entire experience feels as if it’s played on an unending time-lapse. A frantic sprint toward nowhere, where the absence of rhythm leaves no room to breathe, to feel, or to believe.

Take, for instance, a cool montage in the second half of Baby John. Here, Dhawan dismantles the villain’s empire within minutes, set to a superb BGM — crafted, no doubt, to elicit thunderous applause. But, the moment lands with a hollow thud, offering nothing new, nothing earned. By this point, the film has already played out like an extended montage, that when the stakes are meant to peak, there is no resonance — just simple exhaustion. The narrative’s super fast pace erases the space for stillness and silence. The twin forces that lend weight to a spectacle. Highs blur into monotony; dialogue-baazi devolves into caricature. In failing to honor its hero’s presence, the film undermines its own intent. Worship requires reverence, a quiet acknowledgment of grandeur, but none arrives. Instead, the film races against its protagonist, only to discover too late that the true journey required walking beside him, not outrunning him.

In this light, a traditional masala film would have been a far more fitting choice for Varun Dhawan’s first foray into this space. Masala films still cling to the art of buildup, to a sense of gradual payoffs, and to the emotional foundation that sustains their spectacle. They care about narrative continuity and character arcs, allowing a hero the space to shine. In contrast, mass films are a different beast. They are already designed around heroes who shine nonetheless. Atlee’s Jawan faced similar pacing issues and narrative ambition as Baby John, but there, the gravitational force was Shah Rukh Khan. That film needed him far more than he needed it. After all, there’s a reason they’re called mass entertainers. They rely on the sheer magnitude of the deity at their center. Their strength, their allure, emanates from the mass pull of the star. But when there is no deity, only an actor in search of reinvention, what becomes of the mass? What remains of the entertainment?