Actor Keerthy Suresh's Hindi debut, Baby John, starring Varun Dhawan in the lead, released recently, and the team has been doing promotional campaigns for some time now. Controversy erupted with a journalist making stereotypical comments regarding her.

At an event, the reporters mispronounced her name as 'Kriti', which she later corrected. Subsequently another reporter called her 'Keerthy, dosa' to which she quickly retorted, saying, "I am not dosa. My name is Keerthy, and I like having dosas." The short video was widely shared on social media.

This incident comes days after Kapil Sharma was criticised for making racist comments against Atlee in his show.

The film that was released on Christmas Day on December 25 opened to mixed reviews from critics and audiences. An excerpt from the CE review reads, "Baby John feels like a feverishly hurried version of Theri. It doesn’t let the characters marinate and is too eager to get to the conflict. The build-up is often half-baked, and the action, when it comes, is underwhelming. I expected Varun to dial up his goofy charm with this one, but there seems to be an unseen weight of becoming an action star on his shoulders. He jettisons his personality and seems to be aping his South Indian counterparts. Jackie Shroff, as the nemesis Nanaji, with his frail frame and thinning dreadlocks, looks menacing but never feels like a formidable antagonist. There is a feeble, even absurdist, attempt to give Wamiqa Gabbi’s character Tara (Khushi’s teacher and John’s potential flame in the film) more agency than her counterpart in Theri (played by Amy Jackson). It turns out to be odd and illogical. Keerthy Suresh gets the stock love-interest role as Satya’s wife, whose profession as a doctor is never talked about once she starts enjoying marital bliss."

Varun Dhawan’s attempt at a mass actioner, Baby John, had a lukewarm opening for a holiday release. In addition to Varun and Keerthy, the film stars Jackie Shroff, Wamiqa Gabbi, and Rajpal Yadav.