Saturday, October 24, 2009
Fruit and Nut
Fruit and Nut
If everybody who came up with one-liners while hanging around with drunken friends one evening thought of making a film, Bollywood would be in worse trouble than it already is in.
Kunal Vijaykar tries to create a Mr Bean out of Cyrus Broacha, his friend and frequent collaborator on comedy shows (stage and TV), but their kind of humour based on word play and literal translations from English to Hindi is okay in small doses, but if that's all there is in a full length feature film in lieu of plot, character development and some degree of technical finesse, then it quickly turns into a bore.
In Fruit and Nut Broacha plays Jolly Maker, a chronic bumbler who leaves a trail of destruction in his wake, but also manages to be in the right place at the right time. In the end he has to foil the plans of a mad maharaja Harry Holkar (Boman Irani), a builder Khandhar Zaala and a pizza-chomping scientist (Rajit Kapoor), who have a crazy scheme to take over Mumbai, by blowing up Mantralaya, for which they need the plans of the sewage network below the building (Holkar believes his palace used to be under Mantralaya!)
Holkar who constantly asks everyone if the have had their breakfast (must be some in-joke), keeps kidnapping Khandhar's employee Monica (Dia Mirza), and when Jolly inadvertently rescues her, she falls in love with him. Then suddenly everyone gets into black leather and pretends to be RAW agents.
Not even the real Mr Bean (Rowan Atkinson) could make this mess watchable, so Cyrus Broacha with his limited acting abilities and screen presence hasn't a chance. Boman Irani seems to be enjoying himself (he even gets a dream sequence jig), can't say the same about the audience.
If everybody who came up with one-liners while hanging around with drunken friends one evening thought of making a film, Bollywood would be in worse trouble than it already is in.
Kunal Vijaykar tries to create a Mr Bean out of Cyrus Broacha, his friend and frequent collaborator on comedy shows (stage and TV), but their kind of humour based on word play and literal translations from English to Hindi is okay in small doses, but if that's all there is in a full length feature film in lieu of plot, character development and some degree of technical finesse, then it quickly turns into a bore.
In Fruit and Nut Broacha plays Jolly Maker, a chronic bumbler who leaves a trail of destruction in his wake, but also manages to be in the right place at the right time. In the end he has to foil the plans of a mad maharaja Harry Holkar (Boman Irani), a builder Khandhar Zaala and a pizza-chomping scientist (Rajit Kapoor), who have a crazy scheme to take over Mumbai, by blowing up Mantralaya, for which they need the plans of the sewage network below the building (Holkar believes his palace used to be under Mantralaya!)
Holkar who constantly asks everyone if the have had their breakfast (must be some in-joke), keeps kidnapping Khandhar's employee Monica (Dia Mirza), and when Jolly inadvertently rescues her, she falls in love with him. Then suddenly everyone gets into black leather and pretends to be RAW agents.
Not even the real Mr Bean (Rowan Atkinson) could make this mess watchable, so Cyrus Broacha with his limited acting abilities and screen presence hasn't a chance. Boman Irani seems to be enjoying himself (he even gets a dream sequence jig), can't say the same about the audience.
Labels: Cinemaah
