| CULTURE & SOCIETY |
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SPOILERS AHEAD |
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From
Tehelka Magazine, Vol 9, Issue 29, Dated 21 July 2012 |
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| CULTURE & SOCIETY |
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SPOILERS AHEAD |
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The Death of Comedy
By Mona J
LET IT be said that Bol Bachchan is not a tribute to Golmaal. It is a Rohit Shetty tribute to Tamil and Telugu masala action films with a subplot that is a tribute to Golmaal. Setting the movie in one small village fails the plot abysmally. Pulling the Golmaal con of the twins becomes impossible. Everybody would know! The first half was wasted in establishing a rural feud, romantic subplots and the fact that they had the budget to pull off wire-fu. The title track is an item number featuring Ajay Devgn, Abhishek Bachchan and Amitabh Bachchan on a radically colourful set. I fell asleep before it ended.
The writing felt like this was a story and script written impromptu on the sets, scene after scene by Neeraj Vora. Till the interval, time is spent establishing the OTT characters and the OTT setting so that the non-comedy that follows feels like comedy. Topping which, there is an entire drama company of inane fools whose job is supposed to be comic relief (in a comic film). But it seems their brief was to make sure the plot moves forward. Just like Prachi Desai’s job was to be invisible, Asin’s to look slim and pretty and Asrani’s to scream. Abhishek Bachchan had more chemistry with Pappu than comic timing. Ajay Devgn looked like an idiot and sounded like he was making an effort to go wrong with his English.
A special mention for Archana Puran Singh who plays Dina Pathak’s character, and totally channels her inner Kader Khan (remember his actor character in Hum?) Her OTT quotient doesn’t fail her as bad as the other characters or jokes in the movie.
The story begins after the interval. The twin confusion jokes are brought in for about 30 to 40 minutes. The familiarity makes you smile as you remember the actual scenes in Golmaal. Then it just makes you nauseous. The beginnings of the love stories are a heartbreaking fail. I want to grab the writer by his collar, shake him up and ask him, “Do you even know what a love story is?”
As much as I cringed when they started doing a play adapted by Golmaal inside the movie, the fact that they used the actual movie to begin the plot resolution was a job well done. Overall, you are better off not watching Bol Bachchan. It borrows intelligence from an old movie, and then puts it in a gas chamber. If plots were people, I’d be writing to the UN to get a rescue operation in place.
monaatmovies@gmail.com
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