Golmaal Returns
Cast: Ajay Devgan, Kareena Kapoor, Versace Glares
Direction: Rohit Shetty
Rating: **
Okay, it may be a hit, a super-hit, a duper-whooper. It has opened well, it has struck up
awesome collections in the Chambalpur Valley and at Khaasipur. Whether it shatters box-office records in Ghatkopar or Gurgaon, I care not. I’m not a tapori time-pass moviegoer. Help guys, I just love cinema, good cinema. That isn’t a crime, not yet.
Rohit Shetty’s Golmaal Returns (like the proverbial bad penny) is like some 1980s Padmalaya pots-‘n’-pans movie in which nothing makes sense, except that you are conned into spending your cash on some doodad that moves between Bangkok, Goa and Cuckooville. Any indication of the story-screenplay is impossible because it seems to have been shot randomly. Camera on, maybe something will happen.
Anyway, Tusshar Kapoor with his exaggerated dumb guy aaarghs and oooohs is the best act here. Simply because, no one else in this buffoonery fest is as madcap as him. Shreyas Talpade comes a close second with his gift of the garb. He looks the best of three Tootsie Begums in a done-to-the-death drag scene.
Ajay Devgan is passable as the husband suspected of infidelity (hey, but get rid of those hideous Versace glares, dude). Arshad Warsi is unusually unimpressive. Celina Jaitly as the masala dosai woman is spicy, Anjana Sukhani as a deaf dolly isn’t exactly jolly. Amrita Arora is mercifully invisible. And Kareena Kapoor is criminally wasted in a part which keeps stating that she is addicted to Ekta Kapoor serials. K, k, k, we heard you.
No, this isn’t the era of Pyaar Kiye Jaa or Padosan, comedies which sent you home with a loopy smile. The effort has its occasional moments of silly jokes and madcap humour. But it’s all very garish, retro-absurd, awfully edited (Steven Bernard uses eye-boggling wipes, swipes and tipsy turvy cuts). And the camerawork doesn’t care if a frame looks like a mega-mithai box.
About the only laugh-out-loud joke is when someone is introduced as, “Meet Lucky.” The response is “Lucky for whom?” Certainly not for the viewer who values his intelligence. Or whatever’s left of it. To quote Tusshar Kapoor’s line of dialogue, “Oinnnnaaa eeeeeyooon clack wank geeeee wheeeee oyon oyon.” Yeah, it’s one of those.