Through this action-packed, absolutely crazy ride of a movie, writer-director Atlee and Bollywood legend Shah Rukh Khan team up in Jawan to question the country’s corruption in multiple fields, including, but not limited to the agricultural sector, the healthcare industry, and the electoral system. They do so through an amped-up, explosion-filled spectacle led by a high-tech Robin Hood and his merry women inmates, who use terrorism in order to pay out loans for poor farmers and other promises that politicians give to their voters. It’s also intertwined with a romance plot that sees the vigilante and the single-parent counterterrorist chief in an unknowing enemies-to-lovers, mistaken identity marriage. It’s a strange film that tries to tackle as many political messages as possible, but it’s also downright entertaining with every plot twist it takes.

Say what you will about Indian cinema, but no one can deny the pure spectacle plenty of their films possess. Jawan’s spectacle has some of the song-and-dance Indian film is known for, but it feels less like a compilation of over-the-top music videos. In the very start, one was actually used as a death countdown for one of the hostages in the hijacked metro. Along with high-octane action stunts, highly saturated shots, and a chaotic, nefarious Shah Rukh Khan, Jawan’s spectacle tops plenty of India’s latest action films, which makes its slightly convoluted plotlines so watchable.