517. Tubelight; movie review
Cert 12A
136 mins
BBFC advice: Contains moderate violence
It is bad enough that Salman Khan, aged 51, keeps playing roles which should be given to actors in their 20s but Tubelight takes this desire to stop the clock to a whole new level.
Kabir Khan's film is based on the movie Little Boy in which an eight-year-old pines for his father who is at war.
The difference in this Bollywood adaptation is that the boy has been replaced by a man who is known in his village as Tubelight because a school bully compares him to a flickering bulb.
In other words he has what we know now as educational needs but in the 1960s would have been seen as 'simple'.
Salman Khan’s character Laxman is treated by some as the village idiot because he struggles with nuance, taking almost everything literally.
Initially, this is not a major problem because he is under the protection of his younger brother (Sohail Khan) but his life is turned upside down when the latter goes off to serve in the Indo-China war.
An added complication comes in the shape of a family of Chinese descent which is befriended by Laxman but ostracised by the rest of the community.
The principle of Tubelight is praiseworthy - but it hammers home the message of not making superficial judgments about people over and over.
Time after time, Laxman takes a comment on face value and his literal understanding prompts scorn, particularly from the local meathead bully (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub).
The way in which Laxman is projected by Salman Khan gives the impression that the character is on the autism spectrum but his portrayal is not only shallow it is misleading, giving an entirely false representation of the condition.
But the real reason that Tubelight fails is because the lead role was originally written for a child not a 51-year-old with a scrunched up face.
It is a terrible shame that it should have been the final film of movie great Om Puri, who plays a gentle priest who takes Laxman under his wing.
Puri shines the quality but otherwise Tubelight is a dud bulb.
Reasons to watch: if you are an ardent Salman Khan fan
Reasons to avoid: Khan looks so out of place because of his age
Laughs: none
Jumps: none
Vomit: yes
Nudity: none
Overall rating: 4/10
Star tweet
The kind of man #Salman is, the kind of things he has seen in his personal and professional life, his ups and downs - I don’t think this ( #Tubelight failure) matters to him anymore." #AliAbbasZafar
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