Rejoice, all ye fans of dreamboat Fawad Khan, he who has made millions of maidens, and not a few lads, sigh all over the globe. I’m here to tell you that he is equally adept at cleaving human heads off their shoulders with a ‘gandasa’ (battle-axe), his scarred cheek, dishevelled hair and carelessly knotted lungi, all coming together in the explosive, deliciously campy The Legend of Maula Jatt.
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The most expensively produced Pakistani film currently conquering the box office in the regions where it has released, is a reboot of the iconic 1979 ‘Maula Jatt’, which tells the story of brave warrior Maula (Fawad) taking on the might of the savage, power-hungry Natt clan. Directed by Bilal Lashari, who made a mark with the 2013 actioner ‘Waar’, the new Maula borrows the story from the older one, and dresses it up in a style which meshes ‘chatpata’ subcontinental masala with a very ‘Game of Thrones’ aesthetic. This makes ‘The Legend of Maula Jatt’ fast, furious, and bloody, with practically every set-piece ending in sprays of the red stuff.
For those unfamiliar with the legend, it involves the massacre of the Jatt family, leaving the young Maula traumatised and terrified. A kindly woman takes him in, and raises him with her own son Moodha (Shafi), lavishing even more ‘laad and pyaar’ on the orphan because, well, that’s what desi mums do, right? The initial bits are spent building up the affectionate sparring between Maula and Moodha, their initiation into professional wrestling, and Maula being anointed as the local hero who always wins in the ring.
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This is leavened by the jostling between the smitten ‘gaon-ki-gori’ Mukkhoo Jattni (Mahira) and Maula, her coming on heavy, him pretending to be disinterested. But we know, don’t we, that he is all about her, and will sooner vs later submit to her passionate ministrations: Mukkhoo may be a village belle who wears her heart on her sleeve, but she has a steely core which tells you that she will overcome all odds to get her man. A gorgeous, dreamy sequence on a moon-lit night makes you wish there was more of their romance in the movie, but then that would deflect from Maula’s purpose of revenge, and all the macho sabre-rattling and blood-letting that the film promises, and that would never do, would it.
The bad guys are almost as charismatic. Noori Natt (Abbasi), chained away in a dungeon to save him from his own ultra-violent impulses, takes over the family business after his equally brutal younger brother Maakha (Rasheed) is pushed out of the equation. Their sister Daaro (Malik), even more vicious, has no qualms about getting rid of those who come in her blow-hot blow-cold way. The clashes between the vile Natts and their henchmen, and the honourable Maula and his village folk fills up the film; all manner of flesh is riven, and the body count rises relentlessly.
‘The Legend Of Maula Jatt’ reminds you of the films Bollywood used to make at one time, loudly, proudly declamatory, in which the mainstay of the plot was good vs evil. Clearly, it was Lollywood’s legacy too. With its ensemble of able performers all having a blast, ‘Maula Jatt’ smartly refreshes that nostalgia, and does double duty : brings back the ‘gandasa’, deep-sixed for decades, as the heroic choice of weapon, and rescues Fawad Khan from playing the eternal lover by making him parlay rage with such efficiency. Hence proving that the ‘gandasa’-flashing Fawad is as sexy, and an even more potent weapon of mass destruction.
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The Legend of Maula Jatt
The Legend of Maula Jatt cast: Fawad Khan, Mahira Khan, Hamza Ali Abbasi, Humaima Malik, Gohar Rasheed, Faris Shafi
The Legend of Maula Jatt director: Bilal Lashari
The Legend of Maula Jatt rating: 3.5 stars
