The official trailer to Naam Shabana, the much-anticipated prequel to the 2015 sleeper hit ‘Baby’ is out and well frankly, it looks much better than I had thought it would be.
Bollywood might not be the best at everything, and for all its faults, that Bollywood copies stuff from Hollywood, is backwards and what not, but this time, I believe we are doing something right.
You see, in this case, where Hollywood is still mostly making male oriented origin movies, what with Marvel still putting out no word on a Black Widow movie or anything like that, we seem to be ahead of them for once.
Naam Shabana, which is the origin story of Taapsee Pannu’s character in ‘Baby’ Shabana seems all set to break a lot of barriers.
Trailers don’t generally impress me, however, there are a few points I observed while watching this one, which I wanted to share with you all:
1. Great Detail To The Action Sequences:
One thing that mostly seems to irk me of origin stories and mostly when it concerns a female lead is when the story passes up on good action sequences in favour of softer and lighter storyline.
Sure there will be a couple of intense action scenes, usually around the climax, but overall the movie would be soft and feminine.
Naam Shabana, on the other hand, gives full justice, or at least seems to, to its predecessor Baby, most of all in terms of action technique.
The detail given to the action sequences is pretty good and hopefully, the film will run as smoothly as Taapsee’s kicks and punches do.
2. No Romance Just Because Female:
Now, I might be completely wrong in this, and god I really hope I am not, but I don’t believe that the film will delve too much into the romantic phase of Shabana’s character.
From the trailer itself, we can gather what exactly happened to her partner and what made her enter into the life and eventually ‘Baby’.
I think they will have just a small portion of the beginning showing that phase, just to set Shabana’s life prior and then quickly move onto her training and badass ways.
Anyways, my personal observation is that the movie won’t be spending an unnecessary amount of time on her life with her partner, just because the lead is a female.
3. Story Seems To Be A Bit Tried And Tested Though:
Okay, now while I mostly have good things to say about the trailer, but there is one thing about this movie I don’t necessarily like, and that is the initial plot and story.
The whole, my partner was killed and then I turned to a life of fighting and saving the world, becoming a killing machine kind is something I believe is overdone.
And unfortunately, when such plotlines fall on women characters, directors don’t generally seem equipped to handle them.
The story of Naam Shabana seems to be like that only, however, the thing that could set it apart is its treatment and whether it is able to add in a shock factor or not.
4. Akshay Kumar Is Not The Hero. At Least I Hope He Is Not:
Last but not the least observation I got from the trailer is that Akshay Kumar is not going to be the hero of the film.
Unlike Pink or Dangal, where even though the films were touted as feminist and whatnot, the film relied solely on the bulky shoulders of the male leads, Naam Shabana seems to be all about Taapsee.
I think, Akshay will have an important part to play, but one I don’t think he will be making an entry till late in the film and two, even when he is there the attention won’t entirely be on him.
Taapsee is the lead and so shall remain.
Signing off I would just like to say that, Bollywood slowly but gradually seems to be changing its stance on female- centric films and Naam Shabana, at least from the trailer, seems to be doing a good job of making them seem inviting and intriguing.
Image Credits: Google Images
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