Review | Cirkus – Comedy For Kids

What? No cars blown up? Ringmaster Rohit Shetty cracks a new whip by giving up his penchant for action and blasts to attempt a pure comedy of chaos. 

In the past, double roles like Ram Aur Shyam (1967), Seeta Aur Geeta (1972) and Jaise Ko Taisa (1973) used the template of contrasts with one twin being timid and the other fiery, one rich, the other poor.

However, Rohit Shetty draws from Shakespeare’s The Comedy Of Errors which had not one but two sets of twins creating double the confusion. It worked well as the wacky Kishore Kumar-Asit Sen starrer Do Dooni Char (1968) and as Angoor (1982) which Gulzar made with Sanjeev Kumar and Deven Verma.

Rohit goes south, goes retro into the 70s and sets up the backdrop of a circus for the madness that should ensue when Roy (Ranveer Singh) and Joy (Varun Sharma) go from Bangalore to Ooty to strike a land deal where another set of Roy (Ranveer) and Joy (Varun) own and run Jubilee Cirkus. 

Rewind to 1942 when Dr Roy (Murli Sharma) and Joy Jamnadas (Uday Tikekar) run an orphanage. It’s Roy’s belief that it’s not bloodline but parvarish or upbringing that matters, a thought that’s as old as Raj Kapoor’s Awara (1951). But Shetty and his many writers use it for the doctor to separate two sets of twins when they’re adopted from the orphanage and both sets of new parents name their kids Roy and Joy. 

One set grows up in Bangalore, the other in Ooty where Roy is popular as Electric Man in the circus. Bur every time Electric Roy displays his unique prowess with electricity, his twin in Bangalore goes into inexplicable spasms of electric shock.

With Electric Man happily married to Mala (Pooja Hegde) and the Bangalore Roy crazy about Bindu (Jacqueline Fernandez), mix-ups and confusion reign once both the sets of Roys and Joys crisscross in Ooty. It’s the situations and a bunch of comedians that try to provide the comic moments, not the Roys and Joys who are straightforward boys. Johnny Lever as Polson Bhai, Sanjay Mishra as Bindu’s dad, Anil Charanjeett as his assistant Prem, Vrijesh Hirjee as a taxi-driver in Ooty, Siddharth Jadhav as petty thief Momo, Mukesh Tiwari as Bageera Daku a hotel owner, Tiku Talsania as a jeweller and Brajesh Kalra as his Urdu-spouting assistant, are all on board to up the wackiness. Talented Ashwini Kalsekar as mother Shakuntala Devi is used too sparingly to make an impact.  

Except for occasional funny patches where one Roy’s show with electricity sets off spasms in the other or when Prem does a joyful jig every time his boss gets slapped, it takes a while for the entertainment to take off in Ooty. But towards the end, it does build up well especially when the two Roys ultimately meet at the circus.

However, Shetty and his writers needed to end on a much more comic note than forcing a Golmaal dialogue as the last punch. 

Ranveer Singh is endearingly likeable as Roy, Varun Sharma is pleasant as Joy and Pooja makes a pretty wife. Jacqueline with her weird hairstyles, makeup and dialogue delivery continues to baffle as an actress. Murli Sharma is always competent.

Disappointingly, Rohit falls back on worn-out tools of narration and humour like Breaking the 4^th Wall with Murli Sharma talking to the camera, an annoyingly overused technique popularised by Kevin Spacey way back in House Of Cards (2013). Or using malapropism in the dialogues with Siddharth Jadhav dropping words like ‘Iftekhar’ for ‘ittefaq’ and ‘municipality’ for ‘hospitality’ and Sanjay Mishra substituting names and words. Fortunately, the perfect comic timing of the actors saves it in places. Trying to raise laughs by naming petty thieves as Momo and Mango-Chikki is also weak comedy though it sometimes works like when Sulabha Arya (as an ageing aunt) hears Mango-Chikki and says, “Nahi hai. Kaju chikki chalega?’ 

Superb music would’ve also been an added attraction in this Cirkus but except for choreography that has vim and vigour to match the Ranveer-Deepika energy in ‘Current laga re’, the songs and their picturisations are a letdown. ‘Sun zara’ picturised on Ranveer-Jacqueline and Ranveer-Pooja follows the pattern of ‘Humko tumse ho gaya hai pyar’ in the 70s’ Amar Akbar Anthony where different stanzas of the same song were picturised on different couples.

The ode to old Hindi film songs doesn’t stir sweet nostalgia while filming on obviously fake sets and blue/green screens is a bit of a put-off.

Dr Roy’s reason for separating the twins to prove his theory of upbringing over bloodline to bat for adoption is fair. But is stretched to bring in a tiresome message of communal harmony which is rather illogical and irrelevant since it’s bigoted upbringing and early radicalisation that most often raises a fanatical, communal population. So will Cirkus work like Rohit Shetty’s films normally do? Rather doubtful unless Santa Claus sends families with kids to celebrate the festive season by going in large numbers for some childish fun.

Watch the trailer of Cirkus:

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