‘Baby John’ review: What a way to end the year

He is a former police officer now living under an assumed identity, but a Wikipedia page as well as photos of him in uniform are readily available online. Soon after surviving a brutal attack, he sends off his beloved daughter to a school trip unprotected and unsupervised.

Baby John isn’t even trying. Kalees’s official Hindi remake of Atlee’s Tamil hit Theri (2016) rehashes its source material with as much enthusiasm as lead actor Varun Dhawan steps into the role of the rowdy cop.

Although Kalees is also credited with the screenplay, Baby John barely moves on the Vijay-starrer Theri, with whole scenes and stretches of dialogue regurgitated for a Hindi audience. Dhawan is John, a bakery owner in Alappuzha who’s bringing up his daughter Khushi (Zara Zyanna) all by himself. Is John doing a good job? Khushi’s bratty behaviour and heavily underlined precocity make you wonder.

John has been forced into hiding – or whatever he is calling it – after irking the gangster Nana (Jackie Shroff). Having made the mistake of letting Nana live, John has to resume his head-bashing ways – and the price is paid by viewers rather than John or any of the other characters.

Although John is the noble type, bleeding for children forced into beggary or girls...

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