KIS KISKO PYAR KAROON: Love it? Naah, leave it! [1/5]

In times when Govinda is pushing himself hard to reinvent his career with at least ‘his best in considerately not-so-good films’, someone is trying to do a typical Govinda act. I laugh, but hardly at the act and mostly at the ridiculous choice one has made to mark his calling for the big screen. Abbas-Mustan’s KIS KISKO PYAAR KAROON sees not only the rise of absurd, silly and tasteless writing in bollywood comedies seeking laughs at each & every scene but also the regrettable fall of the magical talent of India’s most-loved entertainer on Television named & famed as Kapil Sharma. I really wonder if one should go dumb before enjoying these comedies. If so, where should I dump my brain jam-packed with all the hard-earned sense and sensibilities? I think the makers should set up a counter outside the theatre.

KIS KISKO PYAAR KAROON tries to be a situational comedy where the situations are all fabricated, unreasonable and totally convenient to the plot. It is also a film that questions and insults the intellect of today’s women exactly the way Kapil hits on his TV show. Here, he plays Shiv Ram Kishen Kumar- a millionaire owning 4 flats in a skyscraper on the most-expensive Nariman Point of Mumbai [I can be wrong of the exact address though], 3 wives [Manjari Phadnis, Sai Lokur & Simran Kaur Mundi] to fill in as some of the designer furniture and a hot-body girlfriend [Eli Avram] supposedly being the ‘love’ of his life. Hard to digest? Wait, there is more. Considering the same apartment they are placed smartly by their ‘all in one’ husband, the wives become friends. They party together. They shop together. In fact, they jog together but their mind doesn’t shift an inch to find out that they are sharing the same man. I m not judging them but how can one marry a guy without knowing his full name. This guy in polygamy uses each part of his name as his identity to all 4 girls in his life. And guess what, the sympathy is always in the court of the husband. Actually, he plays a Krishna from Mahabharata who prefers to marry every ‘Abla Naari’ in his way to rescue them from their ill-fated world. The only problem here is, there is no religion to back the faith in his persona. Comedy could possibly be the force but sadly, it also fails.

KIS KISKO PYAAR KAROON is a film that believes in creating problems in name of the plot-development and then solving all of it in an explanatory and emotional climax. One’s misery is other’s laugh but it all become offensive when you see everyone acting calm as the deads about serious issues like polygamy, cheating, extra-marital affairs and all of that related to women’s respect. Could we also react the same way if a woman is seen playing wife to 4 different men? Would we not call her names? I think enough is never enough for Bollywood filmmakers. The film constantly hits the low in comedy and becomes a torture at some point. How many millions of times you want to laugh at a man hiding his identity with banging his face in the cake? People carry the ‘printed’ photographs to identify someone in times of e-mails, Whats App and Camera-phones. I mean, really? An underworld don [Arbaaz Khan] can orchestrate a 5-crore ransom but can’t afford a hearing-aid. I know why. To bless the film’s writer buy some more screen-time to try his luck in making us laugh at one’s disability. Someone is sick. Really!

Surprisingly, the supporting cast contributes more to work in favor of the film’s whole propaganda of being a comedy film than the principal cast. Varun Sharma despite acting his regular methods since his first break in FUKREY is very much watchable. Jamie Lever, the daughter of ace comedian Johnny Lever shows a great promise and has the most fertile and the best gags in the movie. Arbaaz Khan, Sharat Saxena and Supriya Pathak Kapur are also a much relief. The female brigade hardly impresses. And now the man himself; no one can actually doubt Kapil’s ability to make people laugh but the big canvas is a different ball game altogether. Here, actors rarely manage to go beyond the script to instate their strata even if the film is bad. And I am talking about actors.

At the end, KIS KISKO PYAAR KAROON is a big forgettable comic set. On Television, it might go overlooked but watching someone mouthing cheesy one-liners on big screen and not noticing his all dull, dry and dead lips sans lip-balm is the worst screen-makeup I have seen. If banning is being a fashion these days, [Though I don’t encourage of any kinds] I would call a ban on these mindless comedies that could harm a lot within you. Go back to the television, if you really want to see Kapil’s infectious energy, honesty, charm and the ruling power he holds in his show. You won’t find any of these in KIS KISKO PYAAR KAROON. Nothing can force you to love it! [1/5]   

ALL IS WELL: All is rubbish. A total waste! [1/5]

Good news for all the complainants who don’t waste a chance to criticize Bollywood for being irrational, illogical and unreasonable! Here comes a film that does bother to give you enough reasons to explain what’s coming next and why it is there in the film! Even then the film in question ends up being a strong contender of ‘the silliest film of the year’ trophy, I don’t really wonder why. Picture this; an NRI [Abhishek Bachchan] stops at a roadside dhaba on Chandigarh-Solan highway to feed his family a good meal after a much hurried and hassled drive. The man at the counter is charging him some 5 thousand rupees for 4 people’s meal which is not even served or consumed yet. The poor guy doesn’t carry cash. To save him from the embarrassment, the local dancer [She was the reason for the hiked price] offers him a dance with her in exchange. What comes next is the item number by Sonakshi Sinha heavily supported by the Jr Bachchan. C’mon, even a Rakhi Sawant won’t do it for the said amount!

The problem with Umesh Shukla’s ALL IS WELL is its lazy ambition to become another Priyadarshan movie where cartoonish characters will do anything [banging head on the wall, rolling over one and other, slapping each other] to make you laugh and just laugh in every scene; the plot could anytime allow actors to participate in a nonsensical chase and then, end it all in a wedding-mandup where glycerin [the most-overrated chemical to make you look serious actor] will have a separate counter at the food-court. Though the story is not at all bad for a family entertainer, the emotions get silenced by the screeching dialogues and awful performances.

Bhajanlal Bhalla [Rishi Kapoor] runs a bakery that has hardly any incoming income to run the family. In fact, it is more of a bone of contention between him and his wife [Supriya Pathak Kapoor]. The son Inder [Abhishek Bachchan] fed up of the regular domestic verbal clash has moved abroad to make it big in his singing career. He’s back after some 10 years and the catch is the money he could get to finance his first album by selling the bakery. Sounds simple? Wait, we’ll make it as twisted as any Priyadarshan movie. Add a local slapstick gangster [Mohammad Zeeshan Ayyub] & cops will come by design, a secret box of good fortune to run after and a powerful lady with her army [Seema Pahwa with complementary Bugs Bunny teeth] will definitely be coming into scene and lastly, our heroine who’s all set to give her Shaadi a miss ‘cause she loves someone else. Enough to complicate!

For an Alzheimer patient, a doctor suggests, “Inko jitna khush rakh sakte ho, rakho!’ Isn’t it a ‘prescription for all’ statement? The female protagonist [Asin] believes in the signs from the universe so much that you would pick up an orange over an apple from the fruit basket and she might tell you she had saved it for her would-be-husband and now, you have to marry her. ALL IS WELL is full of such irritating, intimidating [to make you leave the theatre] and disgusting elements but what hurts you the most is watching talent like Supriya Pathak Kapoor being wasted utterly. Smriti Irani was cast in the same role earlier. I am not sure at what circumstances Supriyaji accepted the role but it is never to match her caliber. All the stars in the rating given to the film in this review must go to her as the compensatory allowance. Mohammad Zeeshan Ayyub is the only one who looks constantly trying to make it work. Rests all are either average or forgettable.

Overall, Umesh Shukla of OMG-OH! MY GOD fame fails miserably to impress. He was probably too confident to see the film’s flaws. With no offence or any disrespect to Alzheimer patients, I think sometimes you need a serious illness to forget something bad happened to you in life. ALL IS WELL takes you in that unfortunate mental zone. Save yourself, if you can! [1/5]  

BOBBY JASOOS: Vidya overpowers this less-Jasoosi thriller! [3/5]

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]