A dirty weekend video

[1]

Image Thumbnail: 

MOVR2.jpg [2]

What’s more pathetic than two old, desperate, tharki men swinging their shriveled up stuff and selves around taut, half-naked bodies in the hope that at least one of them will oblige? Nothing, except an A-cup lady thrusting her ballooned assets in the hope that they’ll tickle someone’s fancy.
Rascals has both these exhibits, and little else.

Whatever the word rascal may mean in the English language, in David Dhawan’s lexicon it is a noun for “a wrinkled man who will steal from another hopeless man to pay for a dirty weekend in Bangkok”.
Rascals is nothing more than a dirty weekend video of what aged alpha males get up to when they realise that young girls are now headed for their son’s bedrooms after saying “hello uncle”. It is sadomasochism at its absolute worst.
Chetan (Sanjay Dutt) is a sadist and Bhagat (Ajay Devgn) is a masochist. And they often, happily, switch. There is a joke in this twinning — Chetan Bhagat. I got the reference to the author, but for what purpose and what the joke was still eludes me.
Bhagat is a briefcase chor who carries along a briefcase that swallows up other, smaller briefcases. One briefcase that his briefcase gobbles up has Rs 30 lakh which belong to Anthony (Arjun Rampal). What Anthony was doing in a mall with so much money is not shared with us.
Anyway, while Anthony is chasing Bhagat, Chetan drives off with his Merc. Mighty miffed, Anthony goes crying to his Mama, an ex-don who laughs like Ravan. She reminds him that he is the son of a woman who mutilated a man before marrying him and asks him to chose between a milk bottle with a nipple and a gun.
Meanwhile, both Bhagat and Chetan, who don’t know each other, are on a flight to Bangkok — Bhagat with the Rs 30,000 lakh, and Chetan with the money he got from selling Anthony’s Merc. Chetan steals Bhagat’s money and identity and rushes off to enjoy the high-class call girl and the presidential suite that Bhagat had booked.
The call girl is dusky and gorgeous Lisa Hayden who, I assume, was engaged for her rhythmic butt action. She looks awfully good, but is an awfully bad actress.
Into this nonsense struts Khushi (Kangana Ranaut) in a white bikini, trailed by stern white guards in black suits and the aura of money.
Her boobs lead the way and catch the attention of Chetan and Bhagat. Chetan slips into a blue robe and starts giving spiritual bhasahan under the aegis of The Art of Giving. He takes off the burden of heavy necklaces, watches and fat wallets from loaded wives, to feed the emaciated children of Somalia. The mishmash of Osho and Sri Sri is funny, the Somalia bits insensitive.
But Khushi is inspired, says, “Somalia ke bachche ab mere bachche hain,” and organises a charity marathon for the visually impaired. Running this marathon is Bhagat, who wears shades and keeps running in the wrong direction to grope and cuddle Khushi. And so begins the tug of war between Chetan and Bhagat for the monies and prem of Khushi.
Bhagat tries to win her over with stories of his valour in the Indian Navy and tragic romance with mythical Meenu, while Chetan drills holes into each of his stories and gets Khushi to do nagna-mukh aasan. On and on they go, with random intrusions by Chunky Pandey and Satish Kaushik.

Director David Dhawan, Sanjay Dutt revealed on television recently, organised the sets and shooting of Rascals near massage parlours in Bangkok. The resultant wooziness shows in his direction. Rascals is higgly-piggly gone insane.
There is no story — just two grown men behaving like they have lost their marbles. Though the film’s two heroes have some funny dialogues — “Bhonsle ke honsle ne dushmanon ke ghonsle tod diye”, but given the director’s lack of interest in their characters or in trying to tell a coherent story, it’s no surprise that neither Sanjay Dutt, Ajay Devgn or Kangana Ranaut bother with acting. All are happily hamming, shamming.
The film’s heroes can’t stand on their own, so they often refer to their past cinematic glory — Vaastav, Singham etc. But what we get are not men who have a heart or a functioning brain, but vacuous, desperate oldies who jump on each other and on girls and get slapped around and humiliated again and again.
Sanjay Dutt’s wig and Kangana’s falsies appear and disappear as they please. Sanjay Dutt, in fact, has never looked so pitiable. His stomach is slipping to his knees and his face seems to have melted and settled around his jowls. Why Ajay Devgn needs to spend precious days of his finite life on films like this baffles and annoys me.
The only moment I connected with in Rascals was when Chetan and Bhagat, tied up inside two large red boris, are wriggling and bitching about Khushi, who has cheated them. Chetan says, “Aisi awaaz hai jaise kisi ne kutte ki dum pe per rakh diya ho”. Kangana Ranaut needs to urgently retrieve her tail from under that foot and stop screeching.