Review of Bol Bachchan (2012) by Bhavesh B — 16 Sep 2012

Comedy-of-errors has been the most explored areas in drollery. The humor growing out of false identities has been explored by many directors and producers in Bollywood since its inception. Some very popular films based on this sub-genre are "Golmaal" (Hrishikesh Mukherjee), Coolie No.1 (David Dhawan) and the Housefull series by Sajid Khan.

Rohit Shetty, the director of the hilarious Golmaal trilogy, also tried his hand at making a film based on comedy of errors by making the movie "All The Best". The film was a success. However, Rohit had created a brand out of Golmaal movies. Whenever we talk of Rohit the first thing that comes to our minds are the hilarious characters in the movie that provided us many laugh-out-loud moments. Rohit has also shown us a glimpse of his expertise in the action genre with Singham. Now, he tries his hand once again at the comedy-of-errors genre with his latest flick Bol Bachchan, which is a rip-off of the cult classic Hrishikesh Mukherjee film, Golmaal.

In the movie, Ajay Devgn plays a wrestler and the most powerful man in the village. His character has been inspired from the character essayed by late Utpal Dutt in Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Golmaal. The character played by Amol Palekar in Golmaal has been portrayed by Abhishek Bachchan in the new movie. However, there are a few changes that have been incorporated into the characters. While we saw Utpal Dutt had an affinity towards pure Hindi Language in Golmaal, Ajay Devgn's character is so much influenced by English that he translates every proverb in Hindi into English. This makes up for some hilarious one-liners like "when the elders getting cozy, young don't get nosy" or "he will die Tommy's death"! Amol Palekar had played the role of a singing teacher and also posed as his twin brother. Abhishek Bachchan, in the movie Bol Bachchan, portrays the role of a dance teacher and also poses as his twin brother. To make the character more genuine and in tune with the audience, Abhishek has played the usual sissy act when posing as the dance teacher.

Rohit Shetty has followed the 1979 classic to the hilt. That is the main reason why his movie has not wandered off at any point. He was aware that it was pointless to try and be better than the original cult classic, therefore he sticks to the pilot act and has kept the classic moments and characters intact. Therefore, in Bol Bachchan as well, we will see Archana Puran Singh (who plays the role of Abhishek's mother and also poses as her twin) entering through the backdoor, just like Dina Pathak's character in the 1979 movie.

To make the movie more grasping, Rohit Shetty has included one character in his movie and that is of Ajay's rival cousin from the neighboring village, played with elegance by Neeraj Vora. This gives Rohit a scope to try his trademark action sequences which involves blowing up cars and mindless fight scenes. However, sometimes we feel that he might have over-done in a few scenes. Certain scenes like Abhishek's dance sequence before interval could have been curtailed. The non sense English by Ajay seems a bit over-the-board and after some time, one fails to grasp on to the humor that his one-liners present.

Nonetheless, Rohit Shetty does not complicate the script and keeps it simple. There is no slapstick humor and the scenes are genuinely to be laughed at. All the characters have been portrayed with perfection. The most notable name will be Abhishek Bachchan who plays the role of his life.

Final Verdict, Bol Bachchan is a family entertainer and will certainly make you laugh and laugh till you drop!