REVIEW 143: BOL BACHCHAN

Release date:	July 6, 2012
Director:	Rohit Shetty
Cast:	Abhishek Bachchan, Ajay Devgn, Archana Puran Singh, Asrani, Asin, Prachi Desai, Guest appearance by Amitabh Bachchan

Rohit Shetty does not know this but Bol Bachchan is actually a suspense thriller. So utterly over-the-top and exaggerated are Ajay Devgn’s lines in the film, that after a while I derived much of my enjoyment just trying to predict what his Prithviraj Raghuvanshi would say next. It’s all quite crazily ridiculous, but then that’s not such a bad thing in a world where we’ve got so much to be serious about. Prithviraj is a village pehelwan-type who is so in love with English that he massacres it every time he speaks. You’ve heard that his “chest has become a blouse” from the film’s promos. Do you also know that’s his way of saying someone has done him proud? When a young man interrupts a conversation between two older persons, Pratap chides him with, “When elder get cosy, younger don’t put nosy.” He also at one point doles out this wisdom: “Hard work is the keyhole to the saxophone.” There are dozens and dozens more where that came from!  

Yes yes, if you stop to think, it’s all quite silly, but the film’s leading men seem to be having such a good time that it’s hard not to be drawn into the madness. It starts off rather dull though – that’s when the writers get characters who know each other well to discuss their back stories with each other in a way real people never would. Perhaps they couldn’t think of a better device to give us a backgrounder. The story is about Abbas Ali (Abhishek Bachchan) and Sania (Asin), siblings from Delhi whose financial struggles prompt them to move to their uncle’s village of Ranakpur, Rajasthan. The uncle introduces them to his boss Pratap (Ajay Devgn) who offers Abbas a job … except that he does not know his employee’s real name because circumstances led to a lie as a result of which Abbas was introduced to Pratap by the name Abhishek Bachchan.

I’m not telling you more of the story, but since you already know that Bol Bachchan is a remake of Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Amol Palekar-Utpal Dutt-starrer Golmaal, you may as well know this too: that while Utpal Dutt’s character hated men without moustaches, Ajay’s Pratap  in Bol Bachchan hates lies and liars; the Bindiya Goswami equivalent in this film is played by Prachi Desai who is Pratap’s sister; and a mujrewaali played by Archana Puran Singh steps into the role of Dina Pathak’s character from the old film. Bol Bachchan’s music by Himesh Reshammiya and Ajay-Atul is an absolute downer, which gave me an ache in the heart because Aane waala kal sung by Kishore Kumar for Amol Palekar in the old film is one of my all-time favourites! Know this too … that Hrishida provides only the skeleton for this film which is far far far removed from the understated mania of the original. Bol Bachchan is, in contrast, a comedy of errors completely in the Rohit Shetty mould with hard-core action scenes featuring fisticuffs and big cars against a background score that’s often too loud for its own good. But the overall effect, it has to be said, is quite a bit of fun.

It’s not often that Abhishek Bachchan relaxes and completely lets his hair down before the camera. Here though, Shetty has managed to get him to do both to good effect. When the actor performs “Kathak” it looks unforgivably like a blend of bhangra, garba and nothingness, but who cares, right?! Also, Bachchan jr’s transformation from Abbas to Abhishek to the third supposedly homosexual character he plays in the film is interesting because although his interpretation of “gay” subscribes to the stereotype, he stops short of being offensively caricaturish the way so many Hindi film portrayals of homosexual men have been.

Prachi is effective in a small role, and her designer for the film really needs to tell me where they went shopping for all those lovely outfits. Asin, on the other hand, is so marginal to the proceedings that she needs to do a serious rethink about the choices she’s making in Bollywood after having made such an indelible mark in southern Indian cinema. Asrani is endearing as ever.

However, the scene stealers in Bol Bachchan are Ajay Devgn and Archana Puran Singh. The latter is an absolute hoot as a woman struggling to play a sedate mother while being an incorrigible seductress in reality ... though it’s a sign of the industry’s inescapable sexist ageism that heroes in their 40s act as the lovers of heroines in their 20s without batting an eyelid, but 49-year-old Archana is considered “too old” to play 36-year-old Abhishek Bachchan’s sister, but the right age to play his mother! Ah well … if she doesn’t mind, why am I protesting on her behalf?!

It’s lovely to see Ajay’s evolution in comedy from the days when he deadpanned his way through David Dhawan’s Hum Kisise Kum Nahin to the rollicking time he’s having in Bol Bachchan. His acting, his characterisation by the writing team, and the absolute and deliberate defiance of logic in the writing and delivery of his dialogues are what make Bol Bachchan worth a watch.

For the most part, the director and the actors keep the pace just right … There are scenes that intermittently fall flat though, the most important of those being the one in which Abhishek and Ajay try to do a flashback to Amol and Utpal in the original Golmaal … nope, I’m afraid these gentlemen are not good mimics. What they are though, is having a blast. And surprise surprise, the film also has a neatly woven in message of secularism that comes in the form of the very backbone of the story – Abbas/Abhishek’s lie. Although it is stated loud and clear it does not for a second sound like lecturebaazi. Arrey waah, Rohit Shetty…aap se yeh ummeed nahin thi!

Rating (out of five): **3/4

Language:                              Hindi

Censor rating:                       U/A

Photograph courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bol_Bachchan