Hyderabad has not been the backdrop of many Bollywood films but a few very relevant ones like Sagar Sarhadi’s BAZAAR; so
when promos of BOBBY JASOOS made a suggestion of it being positioned completely
in the same city of its own flavors, an apprehension got fixed in my head. Will
the typical Hyderabadi lingo and the lehza
work or else it would be just another laughing stock stuck in its stereotype
treatment? Now that I have seen it, I can say my doubts didn’t get proper
ground to prosper. Debutante director Samar Shaikh’s BOBBY JASOOS belongs to
two, one being Hyderabad itself and the second is Vidya Balan, often pronounced
as the HERO of her films. BOBBY JASOOS in fact, is a complete shocker mostly
not because it is a thriller but as an emotional Indian drama that asks
important questions about our male-ruled society. Why can a profession like private
investigation not picked up by a girl? Why Kitty always has to a dumb assistant
and not a smart challenger to Karamchand in her own way?
Coming from a middle class Hyderabadi Muslim family
where father [Rajendra Gupta] arrogantly announces that he doesn’t need his
daughter’s money to run the house, Bilquis aka
Bobby [Vidya] dares to chase her dream of being a popular private detective. Flooded
with petty cases of gathering information about people’s personal affairs,
Bobby is waiting to hit the jackpot with something big and it comes to her as
Anees Khan [Veteran Kiran Kumar] - a rich man in search of a missing girl with
least information to follow. Stunned in the flashes of money involved, little
she remembers the basics of the profession. Get your hands clean on the client
first!
BOBBY JASOOS beautifully and in its most authentic manner
captures the core of middle class houses. The extended families with father’s
sister [Tanve Azmi in one such] and her daughters live and breathe with ease, ‘Sehri’
and ‘Iftaar’ being performed together since it is a Ramadan month, father being
the dominating force and kids hardly can put their view-points! The best part
is you are never bombarded with forced Hyderabadi dialect but it is well-crafted
in the story and subtly performed. Even in their shortest of time on screen, actors
like Rajendra Gupta as the controlling father, Supriya Pathak Kapoor as Bobby’s
Mother, Tanve Azmi as the Kausar Khaala who’s kind of a marriage counselor
to everybody and anybody comes across, Arjan Bajwa, Zarina Wahab, Akash Dahiya
and Kiran Kumar in his comeback sort leave the demanded and deserving impact.
Ali Fazal is a revelation. He has done well in a couple of movies after 3
IDIOTS but this one establishes him as a charming performer. Spare me for saying
it but his dialogue delivery at places reminds me of Naseer saab’s.
And now, the Vidya Balan! Vidya has always been targeting
scripts and roles that ascertains full just to her acting potential. The
writing here sure can’t be judged at par her earlier selections but still, she
manages to pull it out brilliantly. There is no way you complain a scene Vidya
is in. Don’t fool yourself by expecting a ‘Sherlock Holmes’ thriller out of it,
but this first Bollywood woman detective sure shows flare of emotions you’ll
feel connected to. Watch it for Vidya! [3/5]
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