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Release date:
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April 5, 2013
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Director:
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David Dhawan
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Cast:
Language:
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Ali Zafar, Siddharth,
Divyendu Sharma, Taapsee Pannu, Anupam Kher, Bharati Achrekar, Rishi Kapoor,
Lillette Dubey
Hindi
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_Poster.jpg)
There are two ways you can watch this film. You could
either hark back to Sai Paranjpye’s Chashme
Buddoor starring Farooque Shaikh and Deepti Naval, and feel traumatised
that this remake is not a patch on the comparatively mellow drama of the original.
Or you could forget that this is a remake, and take it for what it is: a flawed
yet fun film and a vast improvement on the shrill, crude comedies we’re more
used to getting from contemporary Bollywood.
Chashme
Baddoor 2013 pretty much sticks to the plot of the original film.
Jai and Omi are skirt-chasers who share a flat with their level-headed friend
Sid. While pursuing a pretty girl called Seema, the two no-gooders are humiliated
by her family. So when Sid and Seema fall in love, Jai and Omi plot to keep
them apart. Hence the song: Har ek friend
kamina hota hai.
Director David Dhawan won half his battle with this film
when his casting director got Pakistani actor Ali Zafar, south Indian star
Siddharth and the one-Bollywood-film-old Divyendu Sharma to play Sid, Jai and
Omi respectively. The three have such a likeable screen presence that it
becomes easier to forgive the film its many flaws. Besides, Zafar’s Hindi diction
is so sexy that it makes you want to curse the asses who partitioned India in
1947. It helps that he’s cute as a button, as are his co-stars in a very relaxed,
non-in-your-face, not-flashing-bulging-biceps-or-tiny-waistlines-at-us kind of
way. Divyendu carries forward the smooth dialogue delivery that made him so
noticeable in Pyaar ka Punchnama
despite the misogyny that ruled that film.
And Telugu-Tamil actress Taapsee Pannu is a pleasant presence as Seema who
never once raises the decibel level of the film despite instances where a
lesser actress might have done so.
Bringing up the rear are veteran Anupam Kher clearly having
a lark in a double role as Seema’s Armyman dad and Army-hating uncle, with the
ever-dependable Bharti Achrekar as their mother who’s prone to slapping annoying
people. Rishi Kapoor plays local café owner Joseph, and Lillette Dubey is the
boys’ landlady Miss Josephine. The two do their best despite the lackadaisical
writing and direction of scenes in which they interact.
Which brings us to my big issue with Chashme Baddoor... Why do so many Bollywood comedy writers these
days fill their pages with rhyming dialogues, puns and self-referential jokes?
And by that I’m not referring to Omi’s shayari
(which is enjoyably kitschy and tacky for the most part), but the manner in
which Jai and Omi constantly rhyme their sentences even when Omi is not
spouting poetry. They are not alone. Josephine, when told that Joseph is an
alcoholic, says: Life mein hamara support
mila toh woh alcohol ko deport kar dega. Noooooo!!!!! Talk about genre
clichés … whether it’s Salman Khan in Ready
or for that matter all the characters in most Dhawan, Anees Bazmee and
Indra Kumar films these days, THEY’RE ALL RHYMING WORDS! Why?! Fortunately,
these tedious patches are balanced out by many genuinely funny scenes, which
makes Chashme Baddoor work overall
for a tolerant person like me.
What’s not tolerable though are the ageist bits that can’t
be excused simply because we’ve seen far worse from Bollywood. It’s not okay for a young man to refer to an
old lady as a “khandahar”. It’s not
okay either that Jai tells Seema’s grandmom: Marne ki umar chalee gayee lekin aap abhi bhi Queenfisher ki model
lagti ho. There are also just too many songs unthinkingly inserted into the
plot as though a pre-determined template demanded a song after every x minutes.
Andha ghoda race mein dauda is decidedly dull, but compensation comes
in the form of the light-hearted lyrics and melody of Dhichkyaoon dhum dhum, the peppy Har ek friend kamina hota hai and the retro mood of Uski aankhon mein toh saji hai madhusala.
The editor seems to have gone missing in certain scenes
where awkward silences of a few seconds needed to be shaved off but weren’t,
almost as though it wasn’t worth the effort. Arrey! Those not familiar with scenic
Goa (where this film is set) may not be irked by this, but it annoyed me that
characters seemingly living in Panaji were shown attending church services in
Old Goa… a bit like showing residents of Mumbai’s Andheri buying daily
groceries in Worli or CP residents in Delhi driving to Ghaziabad for a
manicure. Were churches in Panaji unavailable for shooting? This spot of
laziness and the lack of locational specificity in the film are exacerbated by memories
of the charming referencing of Delhi in the 1981 Chashme Buddoor.
I guess since Dhawan wants us to ignore logic while
watching his films, there’s no point asking why the boys in this Chashme Baddoor intermittently dish out
imitations of legendary actors in passing or the reasoning behind the switch to
a retro look in places. What the heck, since I enjoyed those parts
(particularly Siddharth’s take on Amrish Puri’s voice) I won’t complain too
much. So here’s the final word: Chashme
Baddoor is not of an unequivocally hilarious standard like David Dhawan’s Govinda-starrer
Hero No. 1 or the madcap Biwi No. 1 with Salman and Karisma; yet
the director is in way better form here than in his more recent Govinda-starrer
Do Knot Disturb which was so flat
that it was tragic. True, Dhawan’s Chashme
Baddoor is a far cry from Sai Paranjpye’s film, but when viewed in the
context of contemporary Bollywood comedy, it must be said that it’s also a far
cry from the offensiveness of Sajid Khan’s Housefull 2, the crassness of Sachin Yardi’s Kyaa Superkool Hain Hum, the loudness of Dhawan’s own Rascals and the unfunny-ness of Khan’s Himmatwala. Chashme Baddoor
is a spot of mindless fun and for all its flaws, I had a good time watching it.
Rating
(out of five): **3/4
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CBFC Rating (India):
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U/A
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Running time:
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131 minutes
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