Chashme BaddoorBy Taran Adarsh, 5 Apr 2013, 09:22 hrs IST
It's raining remakes! RANGREZZ. HIMMATWALA. Now CHASHME BADDOOR. I've often been asked, is there a paucity of ideas in Bollywood? Why do dream merchants opt for remakes? Why not inventive concepts? Additionally, a lot of cineastes strongly feel classics should not be tampered with. For, rarely has a remake surpassed the original, in terms of content. In the process, those opting for remakes have lost credibility when comparisons are made...
Now David Dhawan steps into the revered territory with CHASHME BADDOOR, a film attempted by Sai Paranjpye more than three decades ago. CHASHME BADDOOR is loved for its simplistic plot, wittiness and slice of life realism. A story of three friends who fall in love with the same girl and the confusion that ensues... Sure, David borrows from the original, but the humor in his version is in your face, over the top, flamboyant... it's simply wild, when you compare it with Sai's version. Does it mean it's more entertaining or a hodgepodge of the cult classic? Let's analyse...
CHASHME BADDOOR narrates the story of three friends [Ali Zafar, Siddharth, Divyendu Sharma], who attempt to woo the same girl [Taapsee Pannu]. While the girl sets her sights on one of the guys, the remaining two go on an overdrive to tear the love birds apart.
At the very outset, let me make it clear that David's adaptation is shades different from Sai's version. As different as chalk and cheese. As different as Rohit Shetty's BOL BACHCHAN was from its original source, Hrishikesh Mukherjee's GOL MAAL. Like I stated at the outset, this one's over the top, loud and very 'David Dhawanish', if one can use this terminology. But to give the credit where it's due, it's thoroughly engaging and entertaining.
David has made a career out of comedies and at a point of time, was referred to as the successor to Manmohan Desai thanks to the dollops of entertainment he offered in his movies. With CHASHME BADDOOR, David steps into the comfort zone yet again. There's no denying that the humour he injects in this one is not aimed at the purists, but the spectator of today, who may not be as complaining purely because of the laughs and entertainment it has to offer.
Besides, David ensures that there's hardly any dull moment in the present-day adaptation. He executes the film with a certain ease, opting for amusing punch lines, wild situations and mad and crazy episodes. The game of one-upmanship that was evident in his earlier works, namely DEEWANA MASTANA [Anil Kapoor, Govinda fighting for Juhi Chawla's attention] and MUJHSE SHAADI KAROGE [Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar's attempts to impress Priyanka Chopra] is very evident in CHASHME BADDOOR as well. The battle of wits is enjoyable for sure.
But there are times when certain episodes appear prolonged and the jokes fall flat. The intent of making you laugh does not come across as strongly in few portions. Besides, the soundtrack is absolutely in sync with the content, but the placement of songs could be more appropriate. However, the usage of popular songs in the flashback portions is refreshingly different.
Sajid-Farhad's dialogue are aimed at evoking laughs and they serve the purpose. The one-liners, especially those delivered by Siddharth and Divyendu, are hilarious. Cinematography [Sanjay F. Gupta] captures the colourful setting well.
Now to the performances! Ali Zafar gives a wonderful account of himself as he lights up every sequence he features in. Siddharth does a complete turnaround from the roles he has portrayed in Hindi films [RANG DE BASANTI, STRIKER], handling his part with gusto. Divyendu Sharma, who debuted in PYAAR KA PUNCHNAMA, too does an about-turn this time. He slips into his part most effortlessly. Taapsee Pannu, who makes her debut in Hindi movies after acting in South Indian language movies, is vivacious and confident.
Rishi Kapoor gets a complete makeover in CHASHME BADDOOR and he's damn adorable in sequences with Lillete. Anupam Kher lets himself go completely and is absolutely wild in dual roles. Lillete Dubey is super, while Bharti Achrekar [as Taapsee's grand-mom] is loveable. Ayaz Khan has nothing much to do.
On the whole, CHASHME BADDOOR encompasses the spirit of the original, but has been customised to entice the present-day spectators. An entertainer with dollops of humour and wild situations thrown in, this one's a laugh-riot that should not be missed!
Movie Review : Chashme Baddoor
Film: "Chashme Baddoor(2013)"; Cast: Rishi Kapoor, Lilette Dubey, Ali Zafar, Siddharth, Divyendu Sharma, Taapsee Pannu and Anupam Kher; Director: David Dhawan; Rating: ***1/2
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Film: "Chashme Baddoor(2013)"; Cast: Rishi Kapoor,Lilette Dubey, Ali Zafar, Siddharth, Divyendu Sharma,Taapsee Pannu and Anupam Kher; Director: David Dhawan.
"Dum hai, Boss!" - the perky young Miss Congeniality in David Dhawan's "Chashme Baddoor", a far cry from the shastriya sangeet trainee tutti fruti-eatingDeepti Naval in Sai Paranjpye's film, exclaims whenever she is impressed by her loverboy's dialogue-baazi.
Exclamation marks are the only punctuations in this seamless comedy of courtship played at an impossibly high octave, without getting shrill.
'Farce' things first. Barring the core theme of two friends maliciously nipping the third friend's romance in the bud, and some mischievous sequences and characters from the original, which have been entirely re-interpreted as 'swines of the times', Dhawan's "Chashme Baddoor(2013)" is far(ce) removed from Paranjpye's original.
Those were days of relative innocence. Whistling at girls at bus stops, chasing unwilling girls to their homes, and landing up at their doorstep under assumed identities were all considered innocuous bachelor bacchanalia. In Paranjpye's "Chashme Buddoor", it was a big deal thatRakesh Bedi managed to get into Deepti Naval's bathroom pretending to be a plumber.
While the writing gets 'chalu', it miraculously steers clear of being cheesy by a wide margin. Under the veneer of vicious courtship games played by two desperately single guys, Dhawan's "Chashme Baddoor(2013)" retains a core of innocence. A tongue-in-cheek virtuosity remains the film's greatest triumph. Sajid-Farhad's writing is wild, naughty and witty, but never vulgar. The whimsical word-play flows from a tap-dance of prankish internet-styled banter which is border-line silly but nonetheless very engaging in an off-handedly smart way.
If anything, the repartees flow much too furiously. From Anupam Kher's slap-happy mother Bharati Achrekar (effortly replacing Leela Mishra from the original) to Goan cafe owner Rishi Kapoor's unidentifiable assistant - everyone is a certifiable quipster in the new film.
Among the three protagonists, Divyendu, playing an awful self-styled shaayar, gets the most tawdry lines of bumper-sticker wisdom, which the actor delivers with such punctuated panache, we can't help guffawing out our implicit 'irshaad'.
Comic timing is of vital importance to this film. And every actor gets it right, dead-on sometime dead-pan. To me, the film's most natural-born scenestealer is the southern star Siddharth. Seen lately in Deepa Mehta's "Midnight's Children", Siddharth nails his character's filmy flamboyance. Many would say Siddharth has gone over the top. But to sustain that high-pitched level of crazy energy throughout the film is no laughing matter.
Or, on second thoughts, this talented actor's performance is indeed a laughing matter.
Ali Zafar is far more sober and controlled than his co-stars. It takes some doing to remain steadfast in your stipulated sobriety while all your co-stars pull out all stops.
The laughs, so refreshingly liberated of lewdness flow almost non-stop. Adding a dollop of spice to the original script is an entirely unscheduled love angle between Rishi Kapoor and Lilette Dubey. Lallan Miya (Saeed Jaffrey), who played Rishi's character in Paranjpye's film would have loved that. Outstanding both, Kapoor and Dubey make their onscreen romance look warm, cuddlesome and credible.
Audaciously, Dhawan and his writer Sajid-Farhad have transferred the celebrated 'chamko' detergent demonstration-sequence between Farooque Sheikh and Deepti Naval in Sai Paranjpye's film to the Rishi-Lilette characters. Maybe the writers saw this pair's chemistry to be more frothy and foamy than the central romance?
Ali Zafar's courtship of the vivacious Taapsee Pannu is relatively 'thanda'. One reason for their frosty compatibility is Ali Zafar's reined-in performance. He deliberately plays his part a few octaves lower than his loud co-stars who are so hyper-strung that you sometimes wonder which drugs they are on.
This "Chashme Baddoor" moves wickedly at its own volition creating a crazy pattern of comic chaos that stops short of being anarchic due to the finely-tuned situational satire simulated in the writing out of a material that was created 30 years ago when there were no mobile phones and the height of male voyeurism was the Playboy magazine.
Dhawan's film doesn't take the characters' contemporary courtship games into areas that would offend the moralists. He knows where to stop.
Just when my faith in remakes had been shaken by "Himmatwala(2013)" last week, David Dhawan had me shaking with laughter this week.
Carry on, Mr. Dhawan. David Dhawan's new-age interpretation of the 1981 film moves far away from the original creating for itself a new pathway of laughter and hilarity without showing any disrespect to the source material.
Ali, Divyendu and Siddharth's audacious antics, with Rishi Kapoor and Lilette Dubey's age-defying romance thrown in for added measure, make the trio of girl-crazy heroes in Paranjpye's film look like angels. This is David Dhawan's wickedest comedy of one-upmanship since "Mujhse Shaadi Karoge". You can't miss it. The attention-grabbing chest-thumping gibberish-spewing rowdy boyz won't let you.
Dum hai, Boss!
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