Superflop formula

Johnson Thomas

Bhaiaji Superhit is a long-delayed Sunny Deol-starrer featuring Preity Zinta and Ameesha Patel - both well past their Box Office prime. Production and casting hassles aside, the film also had some grave issues finding a release and was languishing for the past 2-3 years. This was probably a well-meaning effort to resurrect the careers of a large group of neglected talented actors from the Bollywood firmament - including Shreyas Talpade, Arshad Warsi, Prakash Raj, Mithun Chakraborty, Mukul Dev, Pankaj Jha and Lillete Dubey. But the dated effort doesn’t prove to be effective enough in raising a phoenix. 

The story is so far-fetched that you’d need to be schizoid to buy into it. The first few minutes spell out some fun but it doesn’t last long. Sunny Deol in a double role would have been a lip-smacking delight if it were to be in a Rajkumar Santoshi movie. Santoshi and Anil Sharma are the only two directors who have been able to bring out Sunny’s latent talent and provide the audience with paisa-vasool moments. His sincerity and effort are not in question but the craft doesn’t really leave an imprint here. In one part, he is UP Bhaiyya-Gangster Lal Bhaisaab Dubey aka 3D whose rather uncouth, jealous wife Sapna (Preity Zinta) runs away and the native brute gets a brainwave - decides to get a failed director to make a filmi love story on his disrupted marital life.

To add to the stupidity there’s evil Helicopter Mishra (Jaideep Ahlawat) wannabe No 1 Don of Varanasi and a meek lookalike of Dubey added on to make the whole sorry ineffective drama a sort of comedy of errors. And it’s not in the least bit funny. Shakespeare would certainly be turning in his grave were he to witness such vacuous creative impertinence. The plotting and pacing are decidedly off-key. The action is full-up but moronic. Imagine Sunny knocking down everything in his wake and you wonder what implausible will look like? The comic set-pieces fall flat with sloppy timing and ineffective word play. 

Arshad Warsi and Shreyas Talpade, though efficiently earnest, fail to be memorable in their supporting roles. Talpade as a corny Bengali writer Tarun Porno Ghosh and Warsi as the fluffed up director, Goldie Kapoor, playing to stereotype, try hard to be funny but it’s all so woebegone that it’s almost pitiful. Ameesha Patel as Mallika the superstar is a damp squib. The rest of the cast are merely observers having little to do in the scheme of things. This is a sorry mess that even the diehard fans would find difficult to appreciate!