Gol Maal in Shetty style

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Rohit Shetty obviously really likes Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Gol Maal. Not only has he made three trashy films called Golmaal this and Golmaal that, but has now remade the original as well. Well, sort of. Bol Bachchan is not so much a homage to the Amol Palekar-Utpal Dutt classic as it is a delirious get-together of friends going mental over an old movie they adore.

Bol Bachchan doesn’t pretend to be anywhere near the league of films to which the 1979 comedy belongs. It simply places its muse on a pedestal, does shat-shat pranam and then, with humility and humour, plays out its scenes, adding its own amusing lunacy to the plot and characters. This includes, of course, Shetty’s four favourite things — slaps, kicks, crashing cars and flying men.
Bol Bachchan is slapstick at its silliest, and it would have sunk were it not for the dialogue by Sajid-Farhad. Thankfully, the duo hand the film’s looniest shtick to the character of Prithviraj Raghuvanshi (played by Ajay Devgn). Bhains-buddhi, bhains-bodied Prithvi likes to maul the English language in a way that is imbecilic and hysterical. He is especially partial to Hindi muhavare and lokoktis (idioms and proverbs), but he doesn’t serve them straight. They are stretched and adorned with so much nonsense that while they tickle, they also baffle: “When elders get cosy, younger don’t put nosey”; “A brother in need is a sister indeed.” Not all gibberish is funny. Some attempts are trite and laboured, but many lines are so delightfully absurd or vulgar or both that they come together to form a unique language, a language where when something is said the listener goes into a dizzy trying to figure what’s being said.
Bol Bachchan opens with Amitabh Bachchan first dissing his son’s film Game, then singing and doing an item number in his usual style on a set that looks like it’s been stolen from Andrew Lloyd Webber. Bachchan Senior’s crooning returns often, reminding us of his gracious presence throughout the film. The item number, of course, has nothing to do with the film, which begins with Abbas Ali (Abhishek Bachchan) and his sister Sania (Asin), both orphans, being cheated of their palatial house by their dead father’s brother. They have no money and nowhere to go. So their father’s friend, Shastri (Asrani), takes them to his fairytale village, Ranakpur, where he works for the big, benevolent zamindar type of guy — able-bodied bonehead, Prithvi.
Prithvi believes that honesty is the best insurance policy (against him), and that “hardware is the keyhole to sex...” okay, never mind.
There’s a potential Hindu-Muslim riotous situation and Ravi (Shastri’s son, played by Krishna Abhishek), to save Abbas’ skin and bones, introduces him to Prithvi as Abhishek Bachchan. Abbas doesn’t just go along with the lie, but adds his own two crazy bits. Impressed, or perhaps confused, Prithvi tells Shastri, “Is ko Superman ki naukri de do.”
Abbas, now Abhishek, knows one hand alone cannot do clapping. So sister Sania and uncle Shastri are roped in. They warn him, tell him that the French beard of a thief always carries a haystack. But, for Abbas, “every penny discounts”. And now, everyways, it’s late night.
Prithvi has a side-kick, Makhan (Neeraj Vora), many pehalwans and some vague rivalry with a chachera bhai. This man is not the film’s villain; he is a plot device whose job is to create annoying inconveniences, usually involving Prithvi’s sister Radhika (Prachi Desai), which demand the attendance of both Prithvi and Abhishek. They arrive in slo-mo, always, and then proceed to swing his men about before smashing their heads on all the pots and cars lying around.
Daring-do done, they return to the main story which the screenplay writers — firm believers in the adage that when life gives you nimboos, make nimboo ka achar — have turned into a judva logon ka Maha Kumbh.
Confusion results in Abhishek telling Prithvi that he has one Maa, ends up explaining three, including primary Maa played by kothe-wali Zohra Bai (Archana Puran Singh). Further confusion leads to another lie and a totally inept gay parody where Abhishek is supposed to pass off as a raging queen. If Abhishek was a little less stiff and portly, he could have turned this into a career-highlight. Watching him I could only recall the genius of Govinda and what he would have done with this role.

Bol Bachchan’s story is not its own, so it’s nice that it repeatedly doffs its hat to the original. But the zany craziness that is required to come up with ridiculous situations and lines that puke at the English language and poke at real-life gossip, both gay and straight, is its own, and here it scores. Bol Bachchan is endearing because it is fully aware of its absurdity and is happy to laugh at itself, including when it tries to wrap up the story with a skit that’s a take-off on Karz’s climatic Ek Haseena Thi.
Ajay Devgn doesn’t have great comic timing, but his expression, which can only be described as “hakka-bakka”, is just too precious. Add to that his muscular body under a pea-brain, and the combination is really funny.
Abhishek Bachchan gets a really meaty role and lots of screen time, but he’s not half as funny as the situations he is in are. He pulls faces and his attempts at comedy are feeble and flabby. It helps, therefore, that he is always surrounded by actors drawn from television’s Comedy Circus.
As is the norm in all Rohit Shetty films, girls don’t really have a role in Bol Bachchan. Shetty makes films where boys love other boys and together they beat up the bad boys. Girls are just simpering show-pieces. Having said that, Asin is looking gorgeous, but Prachi Desai, who is usually competent, seems totally out of her depth here.