Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015) Review: A Border Crossed on Faith

Is Bajrangi Bhaijaan worth watching?

Yes, with reservations. Bajrangi Bhaijaan is one of the most generous mainstream Hindi films of its decade, a tearjerker about decency across a hostile border that earns much of the emotion it chases. Kabir Khan gives Salman Khan his gentlest, most likeable role, and Harshaali Malhotra’s wordless performance as the lost girl is the heart of the film. The reservations are a slow, padded first half and a vision of India–Pakistan relations so simple that it sometimes plays like a fable rather than a drama.

What is Bajrangi Bhaijaan about?

Bajrangi Bhaijaan begins with a little girl from a village in Pakistan who cannot speak. On a journey back from India with her mother, she is separated from her and left alone on the Indian side of the border, with no way of telling anyone where she comes from.

She attaches herself to Pawan (Salman Khan), a guileless, devout man whose devotion to Hanuman is so literal that he cannot bring himself to lie. Pawan takes her in, and when he discovers she is Pakistani and Muslim, he resolves to get her home himself, even without passports or visas. Kareena Kapoor Khan plays Rasika, the schoolteacher Pawan loves, and Nawazuddin Siddiqui appears as a struggling Pakistani TV reporter who becomes part of the journey.

Kabir Khan directs a Hindi production that runs 159 minutes. It was one of the biggest hits of Salman Khan’s career.

Salman Khan in a softer key

The film’s smartest move is to strip away the star’s usual swagger. Pawan is honest to the point of comedy, slow to anger and awkward around authority, and Salman plays him with a sweetness that makes his stubbornness endearing rather than heroic. The comedy comes from his refusal to bend the truth even when a small lie would save him a great deal of trouble.

Harshaali Malhotra, who has almost no dialogue, gives a remarkable child performance built entirely on expression and reaction. The bond between the two is what the film rests on, and it holds. Several scenes, including a cricket match that changes how Pawan sees her, are staged so that the audience reads her story in her face before anyone says a word.

Nawazuddin Siddiqui changes the film’s energy

The second half improves markedly when Nawazuddin Siddiqui enters. His reporter is a small-time hustler chasing a story, and his dry, quick-witted timing punctures the film’s piety without mocking its feelings. He gives the road-movie stretch a lightness and irony that the first half lacks, and his rapport with Salman is the film’s most surprising pleasure.

Kabir Khan also shoots the journey handsomely, moving through mountain landscapes, crowded towns and a shrine sequence set to a qawwali that is among the film’s emotional peaks. Pritam’s songs are woven into the story rather than dropped in as breaks.

Where the sentiment overreaches

The first half spends too long on Pawan’s romance with Rasika, and Kareena Kapoor Khan is given very little to do beyond waiting and worrying. At 159 minutes, the film feels its length.

The politics are also painted in primary colours. Ordinary people on both sides of the border are kind, officials are obstacles, and religious difference is resolved through goodwill alone. That makes the film’s message of shared humanity easy to embrace, but it also means the story rarely engages with the real tensions it invokes. Some viewers will find the final stretch deeply moving; others will feel the film pressing hard on every emotional button.

Who should watch Bajrangi Bhaijaan?

It is an easy recommendation for families, for anyone who enjoys emotional dramas with plenty of comedy, and for viewers who know Salman Khan only from his action films. Plan for a long evening. There is some mild violence and peril involving a child, but the film is suitable for most ages.

Similar crowd-pleasers worth a look:

• PK, a Hindi comedy-drama that also treats religious difference with warmth and humour, though with more satirical bite.
• Dunki, another big-hearted Hindi story about borders, journeys and the people who cross them.

The verdict

Bajrangi Bhaijaan is a crowd-pleaser with a genuinely kind heart, carried by Salman Khan’s most endearing performance, a wonderful child actor and Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s scene-stealing comedy. It is long, sentimental and politically naive, but its warmth is real, and at its best it is very moving.

Rating: 3.5/5