From the word go, you can predict where Toolsidas Junior is headed in the next 15-20 minutes. Of course, the climax will be the usual sports underdog drama. Understandably, there is not much a film in this genre can do with its finale. So, the audience is hanging on to the ‘how’. Alas, the film does very little to grab your attention, let alone keep it with the protagonists.

It invests energy in educating both its protagonist and the audience using relatable analogies and pop culture references. That is the only spark in the writing though.

“How will Toolsidas Junior deal with the obstacles laid on his path?” “Which ones will he overcome?” “What will he do with those he cannot overcome?” It is not that the film doesn’t do anything at all with these questions. Unfortunately, it uses annoying slapstick to get through them. It also repeats a lot of the tackiness under the guise of displaying a character’s memory.

Amidst the ennui, there is a spurt of elegance when Toolsidas Junior (Varun Buddhadev) learns the tricks of the trade. The film chooses to do away with the typical training montage found in such films. Instead, it invests energy in educating its protagonist and the audience using relatable analogies and pop culture references. That is the only spark in writing, though.

The spark shines brighter because Sanjay Dutt delivers the knowledge in a fashion that comes most naturally to him. Throughout the rest of the film, he broods and broods well. Varun Buddhadev plays the titular character with the earnestness of an eager-to-please twelve-year-old. The rest of the cast has characters written way too superficially for them to be able to do much with it.

We cannot say that Toolsidas Junior must have stood out on paper because the premise itself is nothing out of the ordinary. Given that, I am happy that it created some interest, even if it was for a few minutes. And you can only give so much credit that a movie skipped doing.

- meeta, a part of the audience