A look at Tamil films that have highly influenced Shah Rukh Khan-Atlee’s Jawan

It has become a norm that whenever an Atlee film is released, it is followed by a long discussion online about how many films have inspired his latest. With Jawan, the number is high, and to be honest, it is not without merit. Like always, Atlee is unabashed when it comes to taking inspiration from previous commercial entertainers to the extent that it has become one of his trademark qualities.

While Jawan is turning out to be the biggest blockbuster of Indian cinema, it is not without its critics, especially the ones from down South, where the director is hailing from. Jawan has been accepted by most people without a second thought, and the numbers are proof. However, critics have raised concerns over the unoriginality of the film. Many Twitter users have listed out Tamil films which are eerily similar to Jawan.

As far as the story of Jawan goes, it follows a jailer named Azad Rathore, who moonlights as a vigilante operating from the underground of the same women-only prison he guards in the morning. He seems to have recruited many prison inmates who were wronged by the system and corrupt politicians. While each member of his team has a devastating sob story, Azad’s own story scores high on that account. Son of a soldier named Vikram Rathore (another Shah Rukh Khan) and Aishwarya Rathore (Deepika Padukone), Azad is born in prison as his mom is sentenced to death for treason. On the other hand, his father is also a fallen angel, who is accused of selling army secrets to the enemies. Obviously, it is all set up by the villain Kali (Vijay Sethupathi), who has a bone to pick with Vikram. Azad goes about blackmailing money from the corrupt Kali by hijacking metro trains and hospitals. He gives back the money to the people, who, according to Azad, are the rightful owners of it.

After reading this synopsis, Jawan might sound similar to many films made in India. However, it has some obvious traits of the following Tamil movies.

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Gentleman:

Atlee, the understudy of director Shankar, is bound to inherit a lot of traits from his mentor. The young director’s intent to make films on a huge scale is one of them. However, with Jawan, he seems to have used a bit of Shankar’s story as well. Jawan’s Robinhood story–even his modus operandi of holding someone to ransom–was all seen in Shankar’s debut film Gentleman (1993). In the old film, the protagonist Kicha (Arjun) is a heartthrob among the many women in his cottage industry, who makes pappad. The same do-gooder becomes a killing machine stealing money from the rich to build an educational institute that will teach students for free.

Kaththi:

Jawan is like the cousin brother of AR Murugadoss’s Kaththi (2014). There is a scene in Jawan where Kali (Vijay Sethupathi) is shocked to see two Shah Rukh Khan–one in his captivity and another on TV. The scene is a straight lift from Vijay’s Kaththi where the villain Chirag (Neil Nitin Mukesh) gets the shock of his life seeing two heroes. Apart from the scene, Jawan deals with farmer’s suicide issue that’s the central plot of Kaththi. The monologues in both the films about the plight of farmers can easily be exchanged and no one would bat an eye.

Sarkar:

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Then we also get Oru Viral Puratchi (one-finger revolution) in Jawan, where Azad Rathore schools the entire nation about how their votes are valuable, how people don’t think twice about voting for a party, and so on. Suddenly, it was all like Vijay-Murugadoss’ last collaboration, Sarkar. The weakest film of the hit combo is all about the power of votes. Atlee took a scoop of the film as well to add on to Jawan.

Arrambam:

Atlee doesn’t stop with just one social issue, he seems to have gone all out. Hence, on top of farmer issues, poor infrastructure, and oxygen tank issues, we also get a portion about scams in the procurement of military weapons that’s reflective of many real-life scams that happened in the country, especially the debate that arose after the death of Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare in 26/11 attack. Ajith’s 2013 film Arrambam was quick to address the issue in the film. Rana Daggubati played the role of ACP Sanjay, who got killed due to poor bullet armour. When Ashok (Ajith) complains about the issue, he gets branded as a traitor and his family gets killed for the same. It is just the storyline of Vikram Rathore in Jawan.

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Mankatha:

This is a needless inspiration that could have been avoided by Atlee, which would have spared him one film from the long list. There’s a cameo by a popular star towards the end of the film, who interrogates Azad Rathore. Turns out the new character was also part of the plan all along. The final reveal that the two stars planned stuff together from the start was reminiscent of Ajith’s Mankatha, where ACP Vinayak (Ajith) and ACP Prithviraj (Arjun) seem to be playing cat and mouse race throughout the film only to be revealed that they were playacting to steal the money.

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