Bol Bachchan, with a title like this, you’d expect Amitabh Bachchan to be at the center of the drama, but sorry to disappoint you fans, he’s been roped in only for the title track which is also the biggest highlights of the movie.
Our hero, Abbas Ali (Abhishek Bachchan), an educated man, finds himself jobless in good ol’ Dilli. With an unmarried sister to wed and surmounting legal bills to pay, he accompanies his deceased father’s old friend, Shastri (Asrani) to Ranakpur where the latter has promised to get him a job with his employer, Prithviraj Raghuvanshi (Ajay Devgn). On reaching Ranakpur, Abbas inadvertently gets caught in the middle of an old village feud which forces him to tell a lie before Prithviraj who hates dishonest people. Though his lie goes uncaught and he lands a plum job with Prithviraj, he has to concoct one lie after another to save his hide till he builds a honey-comb of sweet lies. To support him in this charade, are a host of actors like Asrani, Krushna Abhishek, Archana Puran Singh and Neeraj Vora.
An innocent mistake where the protagonist starts with announcing that his name was Abhishek Bachchan (with moustache), creates a look-alike step-brother Abbas (without a moustache), hires an age-ignoring courtesan to pose as the widow mother who also has an identical twin sister and the list goes on and on. Ring any bells? Yes, you guessed correct. Bol Bachchan is a loose adaptation of yesteryears’ Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s comedy film ‘Golmaal’.
Touted as the biggest comedy in the last decade, this film comes as a huge disappointment. The script is loose while the dialogues seem to be written in a hurry, lack crispness. The acting is loud while the comic timing of known actors like Abhishek Bachchan and Ajay Devgn leaves a lot to desire. And because it’s a Rohit Shetty film, the audience is tortured with action–packed climax with villains flying, cars doing somersaults in the air and the moment of truth atop a see-sawing car dangling over the cliff. Abhishek Bachchan tries to shoulder the entire burden of the movie on his shoulders but fails miserably. Ajay Devgn’s ‘phunny’ over-the-top English translation of desi sayings in jat accent does provide some comic relief but becomes monotonous after a while. Prachi Desai comes as a breath of fresh air in the otherwise stale plot. And for Asin, why this talented young girl is demeaning herself with such meaningless roles is out of my comprehension? Krushna Abhishek and Archana Puran Singh did full justice to their roles and provided us with some much-needed laughs.
My verdict: Watch it if you have lots of time to kill and are not expecting an out-of-the world belly-heaving experience.
My advice for Rohit Shetty, please go on a ‘lamba’ break before you embark on your new venture, Golmaal 4.