This post is long long overdue. In fact I have been wanting to write this review for almost 5 years when the movie was released way back in 2015 and I had better do it now. Over the years I have read scores of reviews but not one reviewer has reported from where Neeraj got the idea for this “disappointing” (will explain why soon) film. The very first review of “Baby” I read was one in “The Hindu“. I will not name the reviewer but the title of his reiview was “Baby = Zero Dark Thirty + Fargo + some other film“. In the format of the title the reviewer gave to his post I found an uncanny resemblence to the title I gave to my review of the movie “Talaash” on my movie review blog (now defunct but going to be revived very soon). “Talaash” was released in 2012. My review of “Talaash” was titled “Talaash = What lies beneath + Gothika + The Sixth Sense“. Sadly the reviewer in The Hindu not only got his equation wrong in his title but also failed to know from where Neeraj got or can I say lifted the idea for his film. In fact it even surprises me that not one reviewer could find the resemblance between the storyline of “Baby” and one of the biggest post-World War II real-life dramas of the capture and abduction of the biggst organizer of the holocaust, Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann is quoted to have said that he would leap laughing into the grave because the feeling that he had five million people on his conscience would be for him a source of extraordinary satisfaction. After the fall of Berlin and Hitler‘s suicide most of the Nazi criminals went into hiding. They fled to other countries using fake id’s. Mossad and several other hunters were on the hunt for these Nazi criminals. The Mossad was particularly looking for Adold Eichmann and Joseph Hengele.
Adold Eichmann flees to Argentina and begins life there with a fake id. Mossad come to know his wherabouts and plan and very cleverly capture him. They could have finished him there and left without a trace but then they get orders to bring him alive to Israel. With extraordinary brilliance Adolf Eichmann is kidnapped to Isreal on a flight where his identity is changed to that of an Israeli. He is drugged and made to look as an injured mechanic to the Argentinian authorities. Back in Israel, Eichmann is tried, found guilty of multiple crimes related to the genocide and is sentenced to death by hanging. His trial gets huge coverage on the media. Argentinians meanwhile are enraged. This story was first telivised in a series in 1979 and then stitched together as a movie, “The House on the Garibaldi Street” and I watched this film at the O.A.T, I.I.T Madras. Even if no scene seemed similar between this movie and “Baby” the final climactic Airport and Airplane scene is a pure “lift-off”. Another T.V series, “The Man who captured Eichmann” in 1996 and then finally a movie in 2018, “Operation Finale” starring Ben Kingsley as the notorious Adof Eichmann were also made.
Adding to it “Baby” is filled with masala scenes like Akshay Kumar knocking off a bloodless-tooth while negotiating with an Indian officer. Add to it Aupam Kher‘s impossible wig and Tapsee Pannu‘s terrible walk (wonder how they couldn’t edit that out) and propogating theories like muslims terroritsts based out of Pakistan were planning an “Azad Kashmir” made “Baby” such a poor watch. No wonder, Pakistan banned this film.
In conclusion, “Baby” is no original. And sequels are being planned?
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