Crimes Against Cinema: Irrfan Khan in Jurassic World.
A dumb character death.
Jurassic World’s mission was simple: to reinvigorate the Jurassic Park franchise with new protagonists and a hopefully updated storyline. It almost succeeded, but for everything that Jurassic World got right, there was a counterpoint of awfulness that bogged the movie down which made the story incoherent and slightly cringeworthy.
Having said that, Jurassic World is still enjoyable in a guilty pleasure sort of way. It’s a lot of fun seeing Chris Pratt ride around on a motorcycle with his pack of velociraptors because for how silly and cheesy it is, it’s simultaneously kind of awesome.
The rest of the movie is pretty much the same: cheesy but kind of awesome.
There is nothing particularly smart or clever about Jurassic World, and the new protagonists were so paper thin they were basically caricatures of much better characters that we’ve seen before.
Surprisingly though, there was one character that drew me into the story more than any of the others, and it probably isn’t the first one that comes to mind.
That trophy belongs to Irrfan Khan’s character, Simon Masrani, who is the CEO and owner of the new and improved Jurassic World.
From the get go, Khan’s character was quickly shaping up to be the best part of Jurassic World. Yes, even better than Chris Pratt. Burn me at the stake for saying so, but it’s true because of one thing: Khan’s character was actually interesting while Pratt’s was mostly just a stereotypical action archetype only made bearable by Pratt’s natural charisma.
Pratt’s character was fun, while Khan’s was actually engaging.
We’re first introduced to CEO Simon Masrani when Claire boards a helicopter and is surprised to find the over-achiever CEO in the driver’s seat with an instructor sitting next to him.
After taking off, it becomes clear what kind of man this Simon Masrani is supposed to be. He asks Claire how the people and animals are doing in his park, but isn’t interested in her corporate numbers-crunching response. He’s instead interested in how the animals are actually doing. It’s apparent that this man doesn’t love money, he loves using money to bring enjoyment to the people and creatures around him.
It is clear that the filmmakers were setting up Irrfan Khan’s character to be a key player in Jurassic World, much like how John Hammond was in the original Jurassic Park. This entrepreneurial man is the most important person on the island after all, so obviously he’s going to have a satisfying character arc where he learns a few things, does some heroic deeds and grows as a character, right? Right…?
Wrong.
After all hell breaks loose when the Indominus Rex escapes its paddock, Masrani takes it upon himself to do whatever he can to help. When two InGen troopers need a ride in the helicopter but there are no pilots to be found, it’s obvious that Mr. Masrani is going to step up and offer his services.
It’s a great moment as he banters with the troopers and tells them to, “Look alive!” But then in a strange turn of events the Indominus Rex breaks into the aviary dome and releases a flock of pterosaurs that crash into Masrani’s helicopter which sends him pummeling through the aviary dome where the helicopter explodes in a fiery explosion.
“Yay, they killed off the most interesting and fun character in the movie,” we cheer unenthusiastically.
For all the character buildup surrounding Masrani’s character, for some reason the filmmakers thought it would be a good idea to rip the carpet out from underneath Irrfan Khan and unceremoniously kill off his character for no discernible reason whatsoever.
Which begs the question of why he was even in the movie in the first place if they were just planning on getting rid of him for no rhyme or reason. It’s clear that the filmmakers went to great lengths to establish him as an actual character, all without going to the trouble of giving him a proper character arc. That reason in particular is what makes this particular crime so odd and barbaric.
I don’t even mind the idea of killing a character like Masrani off, but they clearly didn’t establish Masrani in such a way to pull off such a move correctly. There is a proper way that these things are done.
Simon Masrani was misguided and foolhardy to some extent, but he was clearly a good guy with good intentions, not a bad guy like Vincent D’Onofrio’s character who was clearly set up to get offed at some point.
But the way to kill a noble character like Masrani off is to let the character die heroically. The best example of this is Boromir in The Fellowship of the Ring. Boromir’s death was satisfying because he grew as a character before he died, and he died doing something heroic. Masrani did do a heroic thing by flying the troopers in the helicopter, but he didn’t do anything heroic as he died. He didn’t save any lives and his death didn’t mean anything to the people around him.
His death had no purpose.
Basically they were setting him up to die in some form of heroic act, sacrificing himself to save other survivors or some other sort of scenario, but nothing like that ever comes to fruition. Basically there was no physical or intellectual impact to his untimely demise.
It’s almost as if the screenwriters were following a checklist of things they had to have in the film, and killing a main character like Masrani was one of those things; forgetting that killing a character isn’t important, figuring out why you’re killing a character is what’s important.
Shame on the filmmakers for putting a good character into their film only to let him die for no reason. Irrfan Khan deserved better than that.
Oh well, at least we still have Chris Pratt.
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