Fact Check: Old movie reviews resurface as reactions to SRK’s ‘Jawan’

Shah Rukh Khan’s latest film “Jawan” made a grand opening at the box office, on September 7, with fans eagerly queueing up for shows as early as 5.35 am. However, even before the movie hit the theatres, the Internet was flooded with reviews, despite no pre-release screenings for the press.

As reviews and fan reactions poured in, many shared audience reviews of other films and claimed they showed fans hating the film. In this story, we will fact-check three such “honest reviews” of “Jawan”.

First Video

In the first video, a woman expressed her disappointment with the movie, citing it as boring and illogical. She noted Shah Rukh Khan’s dedication but criticised the poorly scripted film. The tweet containing the clip read: “The Most Authentic and Genuine Review of Atlee’s Jawan by Shah Rukh Khan’s Biggest fan girl.” The archived version of the viral tweet can be seen here.

We observed on the top-left corner of the video the watermark of “Viral Bollywood”. A keyword search revealed that the video was originally posted on the YouTube channel of Viral Bollywood in 2018, titled, “Zero Movie Honest Review | Gaiety Galaxy Bandra | Shahrukh, Salman, Anushka, Katrina.” The film released in India on December 21, 2018.

Thus, it’s clear that this viral video is not a fan review of “Jawan” but a review of Khan’s earlier film “Zero”.

Second Video

In another video review, a moviegoer comically expressed a strong discontentment with the film, suggesting he’d rather be in prison than watch it. He criticised Shah Rukh Khan’s standing in the industry and even contemplated dying by suicide over watching the film.

This video, too, bore the “Viral Bollywood” label. A Twitter user shared it as the “First Public reaction of #JawaanReview out.” The reviewer went as far as to caution renowned Bollywood director Imtiaz Ali against continuing to make films. Its archived version can be seen here.

Taking the cue that this video was likely a review of an old Imtiaz Ali movie, as he has no association with “Jawan”, we performed a keyword search on the YouTube channel of Viral Bollywood. The search led us to an extended version of the viral clip. The description of the video published on August 4, 2017, stated that this was a review of “Jab Harry Met Sejal”, a Shah Rukh Khan movie released in 2017. “Jawan” was directed by filmmaker Atlee.

Third Video

The third video, also featuring a watermark of Viral Bollywood, showed an elderly man criticising a movie for its poor script and excessive violence. An archived version of the viral post can be seen here. Although it was shared as an honest Jawan review, a reverse image search of keyframes led to a compilation of movie reviews on the Viral Bollywood YouTube channel.

This particular clip was from a video titled “Watch It At Your Own Risk | LOL | Beiimaan Love, Baar Baar Dekho, Banjo, Sultan movie Review,” published in 2017. The specific clip in the extended video bore the text “Udta Punjab”.

Thereafter, we searched for Udta Punjab movie reviews on the YouTube channel of Viral Bollywood. We found the viral clip contained in the review video of Udta Punjab at the timestamp of nine minutes, 34 seconds.

Thus, it’s clear that none of these reviews were for “Jawan”.

(With inputs from Ashish Kumar)