Baby John, directed by Kalees, is an official remake of Atlee’s 2016 thriller drama, Theri, starring Vijay in the lead role. Before Baby John was released, Atlee had announced that it was not a scene-for-scene copy but merely an adaptation of Theri. Though there were many scenes that were replicated in the exact same manner, there were a few characters and subplots that were changed in Baby John. So, let’s track down the major differences between Baby John and Theri and find out the motivation of the creators behind doing so.
Spoiler Alert
Ashwin’s death
In Vijay starrer Theri, we saw that the goat herders found the young victim and then took her to the hospital. That poor girl succumbed to her injuries in the hospital itself. Baby John made things a bit more dramatic as the victim there burned to death in front of Satya’s eyes. Though it felt a bit illogical, Ashwin and his gang set their victim on fire before Satya could see them, and then they were able to escape. Once Vijay found Ashwin, he hung him from a bridge and then, after thrashing him, dropped him in the river. But in Baby John‘s case, Satya resorted to a much more brutal way of execution. He burned Ashwin and his friends alive, but he made sure that their faces were intact so that everybody recognized them. In both Theri and Baby John, the protagonist went and confessed that they were the ones who had killed the son of the antagonist. This was something that I found quite absurd, as any prudent man who loved his family, who wasn’t delusional, who knew how the system functioned, wouldn’t have done such a thing and put his and his family’s safety in jeopardy.
Wamiqa Gabbi’s character
Wamiqa Gabbi’s character, Tara, was in stark contrast to that of Amy Jackson’s character in Theri, named Annie. Now, Annie was Nivi’s teacher and Vijay’s love interest. She cared for Vijay and somehow developed a very deep bond with him. At the end of the film, we saw that Annie went with Vijay, Nivi, and Rajender to the Indo-China border, though I don’t think that she had married Vijay at that point in time. Tara, on the other hand, played a key role in the scheme of things. She was an undercover agent, something that Satya also didn’t know for the longest time. She loved Satya, but she was also looking out for him. She wanted to pin down Rao’s human trafficking nexus and save the victims at all costs. We saw how she made sure that Rao’s right-hand man, Boss, was put behind bars. Tara helped Satya when he moved back to Mumbai and started tracking Nanaji’s movements. Had Tara and Ram Sevak not been there, then I don’t think that Satya would have been able to find Nanaji and make him pay for his crimes. Since the ending of Baby John has been changed, we saw that Tara and Satya were kidnapped by the international mafia, who ran a human trafficking syndicate, something that we didn’t see happening in Theri. I believe Tara is going to play an important role in the upcoming films of the Baby John franchise, and we will see her going on covert missions together with agent Bhaijaan and Satya Verma AKA agent Baby John.
The antagonist—Babbar Sher
Jackie Shroff’s character, Babbar Sher, aka Nanaji, was much more lethal, much more vicious as compared to Vanamaamalai in Theri. Firstly, Vanamaamalai’s motives were fueled by his son’s death, and though he was involved in all sorts of illegitimate activities, he didn’t run such a huge human trafficking ring. Also, Vanamaamalai was never able to kidnap Vijay’s daughter and Annie, but it was Vijay who asked Rajender to let himself get caught so that Vanamaamalai could come out of his den and expose himself. Vijay killed Vanamaamalai without breaking a sweat, but that was not the case with Baby John. Firstly Babbar Sher, using his brother’s death as a distraction for Satya, kidnapped Khushi and Tara and then thrashed Satya so much that at one point it felt like he would succumb to his injuries. Later, when Satya was able to save Tara and Khushi, he left it up to the girls (who were being trafficked by Babbar Sher) to decide what they wanted to do with the man who ruined their lives. Now, the biggest difference between Theri and Baby John was that the latter never showed us if Babbar Sher actually died or if he was somehow able to live. If Babbar Sher was able to escape from that dockyard, then we might see him in the upcoming films of the franchise where he once again goes after Satya and tries to complete what he started.
The end credit scene
The climax of Baby John was quite different as compared to Theri, and the main reason behind it was that the creative team had already conceptualized in which direction they wanted to take the narrative and how they wanted to build the entire cop universe. In Theri, Vijay ended up somewhere near the Indo-China border, and we got to know that his senior had made him an undercover agent. But in Baby John, Satya’s senior turned against him, and in the end, Satya killed him for good.
Salman Khan’s cameo at the end, where he joins Baby John and Tara, made it clear that he is going to be one of the main protagonists of the cop universe. Probably Atlee’s next venture with Salman Khan, tentatively titled A6, might also be a part of this universe, and it would be interesting to witness the backstory of agent Bhaijaan and understand his motivations behind joining the force.
