The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) had always been seen as a spoilsport. Many viewers have cried foul since years over CBFC’s idea of chopping off ‘objectionable’ scenes and thereby compromising on the freedom of expression of the makers. This perception of CBFC got a boost under the chairmanship of Pahlaj Nihalani. Though he vacated the post in 2017, the perception remains.
However, over the last one year, very few films have released and thankfully, the CBFC was not reported to have axed scenes or dialogues in most of them. In case of the much awaited Eid release, Radhe - Your Most Wanted Bhai, the CBFC, too, had passed it without a cut. However, the makers voluntarily made some cuts and modifications after securing the censor certificate. Believe it or not, as many as 21 modifications have been carried out.
A source reveals, “Lead actor Salman Khan and the makers felt that the film is a family entertainer. Although it’s coming on digital as well, many are going to watch it with their families in their homes. So they probably must have thought that it’s better to remove a few shots which might make the target audience uncomfortable. So, a few shots of young boys consuming drugs have been removed. There’s a quick, one-second shot of a boy suffering from over consumption of drugs. Even this blink-and-miss shot was chopped off. Then, action shots at four places were deleted, possibly as it was a bit violent.”
The makers also made an addition. A five second city-wide shot was added towards the end of the film.
Interestingly, according to one of the modifications in the cut list, ‘Swacchh Mumbai’ has been replaced by ‘Swacchh Bharat’. Also, a ‘Jai Maharashtra’ dialogue was also removed in the same dialogue. To which the source says, “Let’s not see these things out of context and try to create controversy. I am sure there’ll be a reason why the makers made these modifications and we’ll get the answer when we see the film on May 13.”
Before these modifications, the duration of Radhe - Your Most Wanted Bhai was 117 minutes and 55 seconds. After these cuts were implemented, the final run time now stands at 114 minutes and 24 seconds. In other words, 3 minutes 31 seconds of shots have been removed by the makers.
