Crime of Bol Bachchan

Bol Bachchan is an interesting phenomenon. As you may be well aware, it is the latest flick to come out of the assembly line of Mr Rohit Shetty and team. Personally I find most of his previous movies alright. They are fun to watch, though in no way worthy of remembering. Bol Bachchan was hyped as a remake of yesteryear classic Golmaal. Rohit Shetty claims that it is his tribute to the movie made in his style. But if you look closely at this half boiled effort, it is not only anywhere near Golmaal, but does not even come near any of Rohit Shetty's previous efforts. Faults are many. 

First of all, the movie is not funny. If I say that the only time i laughed out loud throughout the entire three hours was when they played the promo of upcoming movie 'Kya Super Kool Hein Hum', I am not exaggerating. The movie stars many of Comedy Stars participants and Judge Archana Puran Singh, of which the director is also a judge. The only fact that lift Bol Bachchan above the standard of Comedy Circus is the presence of Devgn and AB Jr. AB Sr's desperate attempt to revive his son's failing career by appearing in awful item songs is as pathetic as Devgn's forced English translations and AB Jr.'s queer turn. 

But the most offending fault of this movie is none of these. Hriskesh Mukharjee's Golmaal was made at a time when Hindi movies used to ride on larger than life heroes and one line story lines. This guy consistently made simple, light hearted movies devoid of any melodrama with his feet planted on ground realities. He made superstars like AB and Dharmendra to come down to earth and made stars out of down to earth faces like Amol Palekar. Golmaal made fun of simple human follies and ego clashes that we regularly witness in day to day life. When Amol Palekar and team tell lies and cheat Utpal Dutt, they and even the audience consider it as just childish pranks, and all of us gleefully join the mayhem.

Bol Bachchan never tries to built on these factors that made the original too good and ever loved movie. Here protagonists are super humans, there are lot of theatrical scenes with high melodrama, a subplot about Khandaani Dushmani, a pretentious religious harmony lesson, and lot of crude generalizations on LGBT community. While Golmaal is a movie that tried to come out of conventional movie making tradition, Boll Bachchan tries to immerse itself deeper into the safety of commercial viability and taking back Hindi movies back several decades. And that I feel is the biggest crime committed by Bol Bachchan.