Tubelight : This one just flickers and never lights up

Tubelight Is a love story of a different kind. It’s the story of love and faith…love between two brothers and faith that can conquer anything.

Salman plays his favourite avatar, a simpleton with a heart of gold called Laxman.The plot is about how his beautiful and happy little world changes because of Indo-China war. His brother (Bharat) goes to war and meanwhile he gets close to family with a cute boy who is being targeted for being descendants of Chinese immigrants.

The story is very high on emotional quotient. The love between the brothers and their co-dependence strikes a soft note.The friendship between Salman and the little boy played by Matin Rey Tangu also manages to cajole emotions. Laxman’s innocence and the ridicule and bullying he faces is touching at many instances.

Messages portrayed through the story are plenty.

The message about faith is good and clear. While it’s told to keep the faith no matter what, it also explained how faith never actually creates miracles.

But the power of positive thinking can sometimes create the means to what we want.

There’s a hint of message about racism and Gandhian principles of love, faith, simplicity and non-violence.

There’s also a subtle message about how the society is intolerant and difficult towards those who are different.

We have an interesting side cast including late Om Puri, Chinese actress Zhu Zhu, Zeeshan Ayyub, Sohail Khan, little Matin, All of them play apt and good.

Matin seems completely natural.

But sadly, this movie fails to rise above the message galore and emotional content…emotions that actually take u only low and never high. First of all, the story moves at a snail’s pace and when we mentally settled down with fact, we desperately wait for the roller coaster wanting some happiness, surprises, hatred or fear but got none. There seemed some kind of sadness and depressing feeling hanging all the time. To some extent, you can act boredom to the list.

It’s a pity that the two Khans Kabir and Salman couldn’t recreate even half the magic of Bajrangi Bhaijaan. It was not a franchise but the similarities make it seem that they were trying to encash BB’s popularity and success but failed miserably.

I wonder what made them think that it could be an apt release for a festive weekend when all it does is make people cry.

Overall, the movie wasn’t bad qualitatively. It just failed to entertain. It goes without saying that its a must watch for Salman fans and can be a one time watch for the rest. My only suggestion, keep the expectations low and the number of tissues high.