At this point, I’m wondering what won’t inspire song and dance in a Bollywood film. How dramatic does the atrocity have to be before you just forego the playful? I mean, you can’t sing and dance following an audit, can you? How about chicken pox? Somehow line dancing about Hannibal Lecter doesn’t quite do it for me, either.
I ask this because in Jai Ho, there are several scenes in which a handless woman takes her college exams. In the first one, Jai (Salman Khan) writes for her. Everybody happy! Everybody sings! Win-win! In the second, the privileged daughter of the antagonist (Danny Denzongpa) causes an hour long traffic jam and the girl’s substitute hands get stuck. Frustrated by failing the exam, she throws herself off the top floor of the school. That’s messed up. Of course, what’s more messed up is that in the scenes before the suicide, Indians look like the worst folks on the planet – nobody is going to help this poor woman? Nobody? Not one of you can take dictation for an hour? And how about the teacher? You see she’s here; you see she’s not ducking anything; you can’t give her an extension? You can’t give her an oral exam or be her hands? There’s just about 1,000 people in the area, minimum, who can do something about this from the legal to slightly illegal and nobody does. Hence, suicide. And we’re gonna blame it all on the diva.
So, who’s up for Bollywood frolicking? Nothin’ makes me want to sing and line dance like a severely handicapped woman committing suicide out of frustration.
♪People are jerks
Society is destined to implode
Life is useless
Our culture will surely erode
Jai HO! ♫
Did I mention that Jai comes with his own theme song? Just two bars, but that’s pretty cool all the same. It plays to accentuate his better moments. I might get sick of it after a while were I Jai. Imagine if every time I did something important significant slightly uplifting routine, I had a band bellow my name. Wake up in the morning. ♪Jim HO!♫ Finish a 
work day. ♪Jim HO!♫ Order a pizza. ♪Jim HO!♫ Jai Ho is an odd collection of the silly and the sad. Jai is ex-military and clearly unemployed, hence goes about doing favors and righting wrongs. He tells people not to thank him, but instead pay it forward to three others, which is a fantastic idea for a society as in need of a conscience as this one is. The highlight of this is watching an Indian trio go through powers of three like Rain Man. Is there such thing as cultural boasting? Yes, we get it — Indians are really good at math. In fairness, I think we need to see average Americans eat burgers. I’ll show you impressive.
Salman Khan is a big deal in Bollywood – imagine if a young Sylvester Stallone could sing and dance in his action films and you get the idea. I suppose this is why I love film; it never has to make any sense – if you’re built like a refrigerator, but can sing, dance and battle random injustice, you don’t need a job; life will provide, and judging by his apartment – provide pretty well.
Jai Ho has a number of staged fights and a number of fights that look not-so-staged. And, of course, some irrelevant song and dance. Can’t say I loved it, but it did have moments. How can you hate a film with a shirt-off climax?
Jai HO!
Who has every issue under control?
Who is constantly on patrol?
Who can Pay It Forward without Haley Joel?
Jai HO!
Not Rated, 135 Minutes
D: Sohail Khan
W: Dilip Shukla
Genre: a little bit o’ fightin’; a little bit o’ dancin’; a little bit o’ snoozin’
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Salman Khan believers
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: People who hate switchin’ gears.
