For the second time this week Ravi Kishan gets it bang-on. Playing
a vicious entrepreneur with a marriageable daughter, Kishan is an
energetic ball of agile evil.
The same goes for the rest of the
arresting ensemble cast of very capable actors who get into the mood of
the con-job without fuss and with a flair for acting funny without
toppling over into parody.
I call it Fukrey-land. Welcome again
to the comic world of lovable losers. The cast here is older, if not
wiser than in "Fukrey". Mummyji (delightfully droll Dolly Ahluwalia) and
her family of sons and son-like wanderers must redeem the family
honour. Hence, we encounter a series of con-jobs, which involves vicious
builders, bankers, caterers and middlemen.
Delhi has been
projected as a hotbed of wheelers and dealers, schemers and screamers in
several recent films. This is director Sashant Shah's "Challo Dilli"
all over again, though in a totally different context.
"Bajatey
Raho" had the potential to crack the dark-comedy genre. The plot about
elaborate con jobs implemented by middle-class citizens has earlier been
done with tongue-in-cheek derision in Dibakar Bannerjee's "Khosla Ka
Ghosla" and Neeraj Pandey's "Special Chabbis".
Here the laughter
is drowned in a whole lot of unnecessary back-projection and emotional
history. Why couldn't Mummyji and her gang be up to their money-minded
mischief and con antics just for the fun of it? Why the sob story to
prop the impropriety?
Not that the storytelling lacks a warm
self-mocking humour. When the script sets its heart in it some of the
characters are positively - or do I mean negatively - brilliant in their
believability.
The TV actor, who speaks in the third-person
about himself, the principal of a school caught accepting a bribe in a
sting operation, the foreigner mistress of the slimy tycoon who attends a
'Mata Ki Chowki' where a parody of "Subah hone na de" from the film
"Desi Boys" is played as a "bhajan".
This happens only in India.
The
film is crammed with interesting characters played by interesting
actors. But at the end of it all, you aren't sure if all of them belong
in this film.
Ravi Kishan as the slimy tycoon, who becomes putty
in the pretty Vishakha Singh's hands is outstanding. Brajesh Kala as his
Man-Friday is even more so. Brajesh's Bagga is a yes-man who is now
tired of being kicked around. We catch this character at a critical
transitional phase in his life. We know he will explode. And he does.
Other
actors suffer from roles that are either under-written or
over-performed, depending on which phase of the serio-comic narration he
or she is required to sustain.
There are signs of intelligent
writing everywhere. But the material sags for the lack of a sincere
motivation. The climax with Dolly Ahluwalia posing in a white wig as Mrs
Hansal Mehta is laughably short of humour.
Nonetheless, "Bajatey
Raho" does give us a few chuckles even while delivering a rap on the
knuckle to the 'naqalchi' wannabe rich middle-class in Delhi.
This is a dig at the Gurgaon quick-rich culture. But the taunt gets lost in an aimless jaunt.
Director: Shashant A Shah
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