It’s not hard to imagine the kind of pressure Varun Dhawan, as the son of director David Dhawan, must’ve grown up under. Dhawan Sr, after all, is the veritable king of low-brow comedies in Bollywood, whose career hit its peak in the 90s thanks to successful initial collaborations with Govinda, and latter ones with Salman Khan and Sanjay Dutt. One can guess how a young Varun must’ve been subjected to mandatory watches of these flicks alongside learning his ABCs, burdened early on with the knowledge that while his brother would take over behind the camera, he was expected to shine in front of it. And so it is that in the new Main Tera Hero—a remake of the Telugu hit Kandireega and a vehicle lovingly crafted by Daddy Dearest to show off his now-grown little boy (and you thought on-screen nepotism couldn’t get worse than After Earth)—Dhawan Jr clearly channels the actors his father favoured: Here we see glimpses of Govinda’s penchant for heightened farce and pelvic thrusts, and there, a return of the shirtless antics facilitated by Khan and Dutt’s gym-chiseled torsos. But try as he might to fill those big shoes, it’s an enterprise that is ultimately too forced, too messy and much too illogical to work—even by the charitable standards of masala movies—a film that is the equivalent of having a madman attach himself to your back and scream in your ear.  

Dhawan Jr plays Seenu, a young man from hilly Ooty, whose troublemaking ways have gained him a spot of notoriety in his small town. Sick of being seen as nothing more than a slacker, Seenu decides, one fine day, to head off to the big city—Bangalore—to get a degree of some description and prove to his townspeople and parents that he’s not entirely useless. But barely a few minutes in college and trouble is already at hand for our main man, when he falls head over heels for the stunning Sunaina (Ileana D’Cruz), a fellow student. Seenu soon discovers that she’s off limits, however, claimed by someone else. And this isn’t any ordinary rival we’re talking about here, mind; Angad Negi (Arunoday Singh) is not just twice Seenu’s size but also a local police bigwig. Seenu, however, isn’t daunted…he takes on the challenge as an opportunity to flex those substantial muscles, beat out the competition and charm the pants off the girl in the process.

Even as it appears that Seenu’s won the battle, there’s a twist on the horizon: A fourth party, represented by Nargis Fakhri, is to enter the mix. I won’t divulge any further for fear of spoilers, but let’s just say that Seenu and Sunaina’s love is tested over and over again in the ensuing chaos, especially once we’re introduced to a big-time gangster with what appears to be an in-built echo-chamber, and his trusty sidekick. There is plenty of confusion, squabbling, dupes and double dupes to come in the second half of the film, all set to a relentlessly manic soundtrack.

Now, David Dhawan has never been a man to agonise over ‘critical’ acclaim; his films have knowingly and proudly pandered to the lowest common denominator, incorporating the kind of noisy, crude, slapstick humour that appeals to some and is reviled by others. Regardless of how you felt about his work, however, you had to admire his conviction in his ability to entertain. He knew his target audience, what would click with them—namely, films that reveled in loud, energetic song-and-dances, love triangles, impossible misunderstandings, and a categorical lack of logic. And no one embodied Dhawan’s love of mindless, nonsensical buffoonery better than the charming, rotund Govinda, who—in both body and expression—seemed designed for such roles. But it’s been almost two decades since that particular brand of comedy  has really been popular in the region—we’ve been exposed to a great deal of cinema from around the world since, and if not realism exactly, have certainly come to expect a little more innovation and nuance in comedies. And that’s precisely where Main Tera Hero has gone wrong; Dhawan appears so enamoured with what he’d once mastered that he’s unwilling to accept that the formula, as successful as it might’ve proved in the past, needs revising every now and then to relate to the times—and I don’t just mean tagging on a few jabs about Facebook.

As far as effort goes, Varun has certainly tried here; he’s a bundle of energy, constantly in motion, pinging all over the place like a bouncy ball. Although it’s hard to fault him—he hits all the marks, dutifully doing all that is expected of him—he simply doesn’t possess the sort of force of personality that set other Dhawan stars apart, that natural knack for physical comedy that one either has or doesn’t. And in that, he feels utterly interchangeable with any other buff-bodied new actor. Speaking of interchangeable and buff-bodied, the two ladies in Main Tera Hero are very miscast: D’Cruz because her talents are wasted in a role that requires little more of her than to flutter her eyelashes periodically and dance in skimpy clothing; and Ms Fakhri, because, well, beautiful though she may be, she simply can’t act. Thank god the film also includes the likes of Anupan Kher, Saurabh Shukla and Rajpal Yadav, who are responsible for most of the few funny scenes.

Main Tera Hero would probably be palatable to ardent masala enthusiasts, but even then, I’m guessing it would just barely pass muster and prove unimpressive on a few levels. It’s admirable that Dhawan has so far stuck to his guns when it comes to defending his particular turf, and there is certainly space in the industry for such high-energy, low-IQ comedies that invite people to come in, escape their lives for a little while, and indulge in a few laughs. But these laughs need to feel organic to who and what we’re seeing on screen; they need to emerge from the circumstances, not the other way around as we see here, where the plot seems to have been cobbled together around the jokes, giving the proceedings an awkward, manufactured air. If you’re a Dhawan fan, go watch his newest by all means, but also prepare to feel a little disappointed when you come out.