’’I’m lovin’ it’’, shrieked my rather animated missus during the interval. ’’It’s been a while since I’ve seen a spicy masala movie’’, she said. The poor girl had no idea how Yasraj films and company would go on in the second half to crush her hopes like a watermelon under a road roller. After a rather entertaining pre-interval storyline, the plot takes a nosedive into hollowness. Which begs the question: what were they thinking?
Bunty Aur Babli is the riches to fame story of two unconventional small town fantasists Rakesh (Abhishek Bachchan), and Vimi (Rani Mukerjee). Circumstances and pressure from their families to do the ’’right’’ thing force them to leave home and head for the city, where their paths cross. They soon realize that leading an honest life of righteousness in an otherwise wicked world would not get them anywhere. Like they say if you can’t beat ’em, you join ’em to which they re-christen themselves as Bunty and Bubbli and start out on a crime spree first starting out in the towns, and eventually moving on to bigger and better scams in the cities. Add to this a chase by a shoddy police inspector Dasrath Singh (Amitabh Bachchan) and you should be in for a roller coaster of laughs. But nay, sadly the film fails to deliver even after it has the audience eating out of its hand in the first half. Which begs the question: was this supposed to be a comedy movie or not?
Some of the plots used by the duo to con unsuspecting victims are quite imaginative albeit impractical; the onscreen chemistry between Bachchan Jr and Mukerjee is quite outstanding, unfortunately the same cant be said about the father son pairing. Their first face to face scene has both of them sloshed; I don’t know about you but I have had it up to here with Amitabh’s inebriant role play. The director even adds a totally unnecessary song sequence featuring the pair and a rather queasy looking Aishwaria Rai. Amitabh Bachchan process once again that he is such a paradox, after Black this one is a rather poor performance. Which begs the question: should we compare any of his performances to that of Black?
After a rather interesting build up in the first half, the climax is rather wearisome and bizarre, and makes you question your intelligence: change of hearts; some over the top melodrama; a dash of pitiable hamming; and another change of heart. Which begs the question: what were they thinking? (I know I’ve asked this question before, this is only to emphasise a point)
All said and done, the movie fails to impress. The three and a half stars given by the TOI would ensure that the movie makes it through a couple of weeks, then it can be safely buried in the bollywood graveyard of misses.