Saturday, July 05, 2014
Bobby Jasoos
Hyderabadi Tadka
Whenever there’s a film with a female star playing the title role, you
get your hopes up, but they are dashed, more often than not (eg. Revolver Rani). You want Bobby
Jasoos to be a great, genre-breaking film, but its many merits do not make
up for its flaws.
Director Samar Shaikh had a glittering phalanx of smart and intelligent
female detectives for inspiration, from literature and cinema— the most
prolific being Precious Ramotswe, the delightful ‘traditionally built’
detective created by Alexander McCall Smith. Unfortunately, Bilquis aka Bobby
(Vidya Balan) is not half as bright or quirky.
The setting of an old Hyderabad mohalla
is authentic and different, the Deccani lingo easy on the ears, but it’s
not clear why a semi-educated woman from a conservative Muslim family wants so badly
to be a detective. And how does she have the expertise and resources to turn
into a master of disguise? In any case, the multiple disguises turn out
to be just a marketing gimmick.
The weakest part of the film is the plot, which makes very little sense,
but Bobby the 30-ish singleton, who is not marriage material and is the bane of
her father’s (Rajendra Gupta) existence, still has enough going for her to make
the film amusing in spurts.
Her ‘cases’ may be elementary—like finding out if a girl is seeing
someone—but she is always courageous and inventive. With her ragtag team of net
cafe owner, a tea stall man and a tech expert, she manages to crack two almost
impossible cases for a mysterious client Anees Khan (Kiran Kumar)—to locate two
girls with just their names and birthmarks to go on. After she does, she
wonders if she has been inadvertently abetting a crime.
Running parallel is her strange romance with TV anchor Tasawwur (Ali
Fazal), who ends up being engaged to her when he doesn’t want to marry any mohalla girl, leave aside Bobby. She as
effortlessly bulldozes him into helping her, as she chases and overpowers a
burly thug.
A character as individualistic as Bilquis needed a better case to solve
and more thrills in the line of work, not just biryani sampling expeditions. There are nods to TV detectives from Karamchand to CID, and interesting supporting characters like a doting mother
(Supriya Pathak) and match-making aunt (Tanvi Azmi), but too much of a burden
placed on the shoulders of Vidya Balan to make the flimsy plot work. She does
well though, and looks lovely in simple costumes. You hope, for her sake, that
the film does work.
Labels: Cinemaah
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