What is it with Bollywood movies and them showing gags? It was tried in Baadshah and now in Bluffmaster, and both attempts have been futile. The essence of having a movie with such a storyline and screenplay is showing various emotions in one stretch of 10 seconds which involves the confidence of the thief in his abilities to pull one over his loot while keeping a general, silent tone in the atmosphere of things while maintaining the essential suspense. It needs urgency, it needs thinking out of the ordinary. If I stretch the debate to the business terms, a decieving yet effective promotion wouldn’t do much harm either.
So it doesn’t help Rohan Sippy when he has Abhishek Bachchan wearing rings in his fingers and dancing behind lightings, both bearing the words, ’’BLUFF MASTER’’ to decieve the audience and spills out much of the suspense.
Back to sqaure one but maybe with a better sence of appreciation. Abhishek Bachchan (Roy), someone who was silent about his lucrative profession of robbery et al to his love interest Priyanka Chopra (Simmi) until the day they decide to tie the knot where his truth is known to his love. In an attempt to win back her trust, he tries to improve but circumstances and a heath hardships go against him. He has to continue to his profession because of reasons galore ranging from owing one to his life saviour, fellow robber and to be sidekick, Riteish Deshmukh (Dittu (Quite possibly the silliest name in a movie) to emotional needs of his right hand and personal fulfillment.
When he finally decided to call it quits, he has one last person to pull one over, and quite possibly the toughest ever in Nana Paterkar. So the story stars with various twists. The suspense remains as to how he achieves all this while his breaths are being numbered, by which he aids his sidekick who himself has emoional reasons.
Enter a typical, yet not so typical Bollywood movie ending which is sure to lead to cursing each of the preceeding 2 hours or so that lead to it. There is always an unwritten, universally accepted law of such movies having to end in happiness.
Onto the flaws which are countless but in a short (yet maybe long) summary, the main one remains none of the actors, except maybe for Nana Paterkar have been able to capture the mood of the scenes. A robber never does anything out of the mundane, yet Roy does everything in a easy come easy go manner which would be the last thing you’d want considering you can be caught anytime.
Riteish Deshmukh seemed lost as to where exactly he stands, whether he remains a sidekick or is rathar the centre of attention. Quite frankly, I am yet to figure that out myself. The involvement of the love story is unnecessary on many terms for it continually shifts the focus of attention away from the main plot, that being of someone who can always pull one over anyone. Abhishek Bachchan, only in Sarkar I have seen him play a character actor well. He has to play various roles, those basically being a complete fullwit, to the teacher of his aide, lover, man living his final few days etc. He doesn’t show them all. I’d restrict the opinions on Boman Irani and Priyanka Chopra to saying they were wasted.
To sum it up, they could have gone on to building a different plot with good acting and having a great centre of attention by introducing a new character in current day Bollywood movies of that of a vastly intelligent man, but have failed to deliver the panache and cutting edge while leaving themselves on a catch 22 situation. You remain undecided whether to regard this as promise or thwart it as the same old mundane recipe. I’d again go back to my point as to what one sees a movie for? I’d believe it is entertainment which this movie does provide. But I look for quality entertainment with power packed performance and suspense which leaves you jawdropped when you leave the movie hall. Bluffmaster fails to deliver on those fronts. It clearly reflects facts, that being this movie being made on a very tight schedule and in a hurry.
One doesn’t necessarily need exotic locations to show brilliant screenplay, kudos to the director and cinematographer on that front as Bombay looks as modern as any other city. The dialogues remain one of the positives. The music, although a waste of time, have some great catchy songs in there. The plot remains a wayward one and raises loads of question marks as to where exactly did it intend to go? Reasons as to why a person needs to resort to looting are unknown as in typical movies where the villan is already assumed to be one evil, blood thirsty, power hungry and hated-by-all being.
I look for a display of art where I know that the director knows his stuff, actors have played characters and not vice-versa. Cue backlash, cue Baadshah. Back to square one we go...