Bachchhan Paandey Review: Fooling Around With Gabbar

Bachchhan Paandey is an action-comedy film starring Akshay Kumar, Kriti Sanon and Jacqueline Fernandez in the lead roles. It is directed by Farhad Samji and produced by Sajid Nadiadwala.

General Rating

In a nut-shell:

Fooling Around With Gabbar

It’s tough to make a black comedy with humour around a pile of dead bodies and one seriously wonders if writer-director Farhad Samji, along with half-a-dozen names in the writing department including that of producer Sajid Nadiadwala, has the required skills in his professional kit.

Outrageous, non-stop fun works in this genre. An undercurrent of emotion that connects together all the fun and gives substance to the laughs also makes its contribution.

It’s when a film falls between silly comedy and an insincere message that it goes flat. Especially in current times when there’s nothing funny about a mass killer who finds joy in cruelty. And is let off because we’re all just having fun. 

A tepid attempt at giving a human face to crude gangster Bachchhan Pandey (Akshay Kumar) by having him go through a momentary change of heart because he’s fallen in love, is so outdated that his entire track with Sophie (Jacqueline Fernandes in her usual vacuous angrezi girl avtar) is predictable and unwatchable.

Myra (Kirti Sanon) is an aspiring director who tracks the dreaded gangster to make a biopic on him, enlisting the help of aspiring actor Vishu (Arshad Warsi) by promising him a break in her film. 

By the halfway mark, Farhad Samji does not even get to the point where Myra and Vishu talk to Bachchhan about their assignment. All they’ve done is to bumble around, meet the sidekicks and hear more gory stories about Bachchhan Pandey’s penchant for killing. The gangster, you’re told, even burnt a journalist alive for carrying a cartoon of his – he so revels in the image of a man to be feared. 

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Dear Samji, we heard that in 1975 when Gabbar Singh wanted bachcha-bachcha to be told, “Go to bed or Gabbar Singh will turn up.” And one didn’t fool around with Gabbar like you do with BP.

Myra produces a thick script with the ease of a high school essay and Vishu strangely ambles along even after knowing she has cheated him of his due – there’s hardly any role for him in her script. Besides being not funny, this diversion does nothing to make Myra endearing from any angle. 

At the end of it all, you can’t help wondering why Myra would go all the way to the dreaded gangster if her intention was a) to have a real professional cast as Bachchan Pandey and b) ultimately make a funny fictional film far removed from the fearsome killer.

A whole lineup of talents like Arshad Warsi, Sanjay Mishra and Pankaj Tripathi who have a great sense of comic timing are wasted in juvenile side roles.

Akshay Kumar has become an actor who can carry off any role today and his performance is not under a cloud. It’s the character he plays and what Samji has done with the narration that make you question Akshay’s choices.   

The messaging is that even criminals have their better side and it’s only a question of tapping the right side of a man. So laugh and let the criminals move on.

I’m not sure if that’s the message any of us want to hear right now.

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Watch Bachchhan Paandey Trailer:

Fooling Around With GabbarBachchhan Paandey Review: Fooling Around With Gabbar