Friday, June 01, 2007
Fool and Final
If the produce of Fool and Final had enough money to sign up a phalanx of stars, shoot in Dubai and burn cash on unnecessary action sequences in which a dozen cars are wrecked, then surely he could have spent some of the lavish budget on a script.
This Ahmed Khan film must be the most brainless and incoherent comedy to come out of Bollywood in a long time—and our comedies have been getting better of late and also pleasing audiences.
Khan must have thought that getting a whole lot of stars and moving them around in a foreign location would do the trick and he didn’t need to bother about anything else. For comedy to work, it must be simple and effortless—Khan makes it convoluted and laborious. The gags are idiotic and the lines sink without even getting a titter. If this were a live act and the audience had been so solemn, it would have folded after one show.
There is too much happening here, and the subplots don’t really connect. There’s a stolen diamond, an India Colony in Dubai, where a petty thief Raja (Shahid Kapoor) has to impersonate the son of an Indian couple (Om Puri-Sharmila Tagore—hopelessly wasted). Munna (Sunny Deol) is the protector of India Colony and when he arrives on the scene—whenever he is summoned—the earth shakes.
Paresh Rawal is a UP junk dealer in Dubai, for whom Raja works because he is love with Choubey’s niece (Ayesha Takia). Vivek Oberoi and sidekick are fixers of illegal boxing matches, and the dons running the show are JD (Zakir Hussain) and Moscow Chikna (Arbaaz Khan, could pass of as Russian!). There’s also a London Don (Gulshan Grover) and his brother (Asrani) pottering around. To complete the ensemble is Chunky Pandey as a lisping crook, Johnny Lever a “Malabari” driver and Sameera Reddy who could well be a pillar wearing lipstick for all she has to do. Towards the end, a puffy-looking Jackie Shroff shows up as “Gunmaster G-9” – don’t even ask why!
There is, of course, no plot, but things are contrived so that there have to be frequent chase and action scenes and Sunny Deol’s “dhai kilo ka haath” knocking down champion boxers in one round.
There are hardly any natives to be seen—Dubai is overrun by Indians—and never any cops to be found though there is rampant criminal activity from smuggling, to robbery to car thefts to gambling on WWF style fights! Oh yes, the non-stop blather is punctuated by song and dance numbers-- divided up between the lead actors, none of whom look too happy about what they are doing.
This Ahmed Khan film must be the most brainless and incoherent comedy to come out of Bollywood in a long time—and our comedies have been getting better of late and also pleasing audiences.
Khan must have thought that getting a whole lot of stars and moving them around in a foreign location would do the trick and he didn’t need to bother about anything else. For comedy to work, it must be simple and effortless—Khan makes it convoluted and laborious. The gags are idiotic and the lines sink without even getting a titter. If this were a live act and the audience had been so solemn, it would have folded after one show.
There is too much happening here, and the subplots don’t really connect. There’s a stolen diamond, an India Colony in Dubai, where a petty thief Raja (Shahid Kapoor) has to impersonate the son of an Indian couple (Om Puri-Sharmila Tagore—hopelessly wasted). Munna (Sunny Deol) is the protector of India Colony and when he arrives on the scene—whenever he is summoned—the earth shakes.
Paresh Rawal is a UP junk dealer in Dubai, for whom Raja works because he is love with Choubey’s niece (Ayesha Takia). Vivek Oberoi and sidekick are fixers of illegal boxing matches, and the dons running the show are JD (Zakir Hussain) and Moscow Chikna (Arbaaz Khan, could pass of as Russian!). There’s also a London Don (Gulshan Grover) and his brother (Asrani) pottering around. To complete the ensemble is Chunky Pandey as a lisping crook, Johnny Lever a “Malabari” driver and Sameera Reddy who could well be a pillar wearing lipstick for all she has to do. Towards the end, a puffy-looking Jackie Shroff shows up as “Gunmaster G-9” – don’t even ask why!
There is, of course, no plot, but things are contrived so that there have to be frequent chase and action scenes and Sunny Deol’s “dhai kilo ka haath” knocking down champion boxers in one round.
There are hardly any natives to be seen—Dubai is overrun by Indians—and never any cops to be found though there is rampant criminal activity from smuggling, to robbery to car thefts to gambling on WWF style fights! Oh yes, the non-stop blather is punctuated by song and dance numbers-- divided up between the lead actors, none of whom look too happy about what they are doing.
Labels: Cinemaah
