Karachi
In a country where the youth is constantly neglected, we rarely see children running to the cinemas with their parents. What’s an even rarer sight is celebrities out for an evening with their families and that is exactly what happened at the premiere for 3 Bahadur: The Revenge of Baba Balaam on Wednesday in Karachi.
The sequel to Pakistan’s first ever 3D animated film boasts an impressive list of stars who lent their voices to Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy’s gloriously animated world of heroes and villains. Therefore, all the stars made sure to attend the premiere with their children or young relatives. While Chinoy’s daughters also graced the red carpet, Fahad Mustafa attended with his wife and children as well. Ali Gul Pir entered hand in hand with his 7 year old nephew while Khalid Malik could be seen juggling both his children in his arms.
Stars who weren’t featured in the film also made sure that their children didn’t miss the film. Leading actors of the Pakistani entertainment industry, Aamina Sheikh and Ahsan Khan attended the premiere with their respective children while designer Adnan Pardesy also brought his nephew.
And all these children could be heard breaking into fits of laughter, watching the animated characters come to life. Surprisingly, the film started playing at the designated time without elaborate delays, an anomaly for Pakistani film premieres, and perhaps that made the entire experience even more pleasant.
The Revenge of Baba Balaam is a continuation of the lives of three children, Saadi, Amna and Kamil, who have been endowed with superpowers, which they used in the first film, to get rid of evil forces threatening their town, Roshan Nagar. All is well in their neighbourhood until a conflict tears the three friends apart. Eventually, their conflict is further aggravated by enemy forces which puts the whole town, including the children’s parents, at risk.
While Fahad Mustafa and Sarwat Gillani did justice to their limited roles, where Mustafa was Amna’s father and Gillani was Saadi’s mother, it was the voices of the cronies that really resonated with the audience. Fahim Khan, playing the character of the evil and menacing Baba Balaam, was extremely convincing. Khalid Malik and Ali Gul Pir both have experience with comedy and that was evident with the way children lit up when their characters came on screen. Behroze Subzwari was relatable as Deenu Chacha, with his elderly grace and wisdom, and Ahmed Ali Butt was effective as the lazy but honest policeman.
However, credit must be given to the three lead child stars of the film: Zuhab Khan as Saadi, Muneeba Yaseen as Amna and Hanzala Shahid as Kamil. They made sure that the characters became living breathing individuals instead of being animated figures, which is quite a challenging task for adults let alone for children, but they tackled this obstacle flawlessly.
Perhaps the one thing that continues to go wrong in our films is product placement by sponsors, and while the other two main sponsors, McDonald’s and Bank Alfalah, were handled somewhat subtly, it was the constant in-your-face imagery of Olper’s that really did become quite jarring for the viewer. It’s about time brands stop underestimating the intelligence of the cinema-goer. You don’t have to show your product numerous times in such blatant fashion for people to notice your brand. It seems as though McDonald’s has been listening to criticism carefully and has started to integrate their product in a more natural way.
All in all, The Revenge of Baba Balaam is an engaging family film that has something for everyone.
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