Hollywood generally casts the intellectually challenged in either a pitiable light or one that makes a lack of intelligence look like an advantage. If one must remake a movie, make it a bad one. And then do it one better. That is precisely what director Advait Chandan did with this Hindi-language variation on Forrest Gump. It took 20 years for screenwriter Atul Kulkarni’s dream project to make it to the screen: a decade to write and another 10 years to raise funds needed to purchase the rights from Paramount. Director Advait Chandan can’t overcome all of the pitfalls inherent in the material — leading man, Hindi superstar Aamir Khan, pitched his titular naif somewhere between overnice Rowan Atkinson and goggle-eyed Benny Hill. From the technological feather that greets us and Laal’s mom’s credo that “Life is like golgappas” (Delhi's answer to a Whitman Sampler), Chandan borrows heavily from Robert Zemeckis, stopping just short of trading on historical coincidence for comedy, a fault that plagued the original. Neither film succeeds in sparking a romance for their protagonist, although Kulkarni tries a bit harder to make his Jenny something more than an indecisive flower child. Zemeckis couldn’t see the empathy in his cold and superior Forrest whereas Chandan’s characters exude warmth and charm. (2022) — Scott Marks
This movie is not currently in theaters.