Bobby
Jasoos is the debut film of director Samar Shaikh and unfortunately it leaves
much to be desired.
Set
in Hyderabad, Bobby Jasoos tells the story of Bilqis, a woman from a humble
background who has no interest in marriage or being a girl as defined by the
society but instead dreams of becoming the best darn detective around. However
the only cases Bilqis scores are about uncles wanting her to spy on their wife
making eyes at the electrician or aunties wanting to know if their daughters
are being the good girls they were raised to be. She also has the case of a
crime show anchor, Tasawur (Ali Fazal) where her job is to get the dirt on
prospective brides so that he can reject them with well found reason. Things
change when Bilqis alias Bobby has a mysterious visitor who leaves her huge
sums of money to find individuals, giving as details just their name, age and
any sort of birthmark. Bilqis soon figures out that there might be something
shady going on and tries to uncover the truth about these well paying cases.
Now
that a synopsis of the film is done, one can get on to reflections which do not
favour the film much. The film is unable to click till at least 20-30 minutes
have passed and in that time you also have to bear overacting by Vidya Balan (a
suprise there!) who speaks in a Hyderabadi accent so strong that it is almost a
caricature. Ali Fazal is charming but only till the moment he starts dancing.
There he is way too enthusiastic to pull off the SRK looks, poses and dance
moves that he has been entrusted with and you can only feel sorry for the poor
guy because he just cannot ape SRK and also he shouldnt. He has the capability
of impressing the audiences by just being himself. Bilqis' family is the most
impressive of the lot (with restrained acting and thankfully restrained
accents) followed closely by Aakash Dahiya as Munna. He doesnt have much of a role
but as Vidya's aide he does the job perfectly.
The
film is lacklustre in every department. No great cinematography to do the
bustling lanes of Hyderabad any sort of justice, no brilliant music score
(cannot remember one tune and I saw the film yesterday and it was Shantanu Moitra who has done great work in films like Parineeta and Antaheen!), no brilliant acting
[changing garbs is great, especially if you are an Indian actress who come up
with gems like not wanting to play a mother on screen because they are in their
'primes' - side question here, if you are an actor should you not be open to
EVERY type of role and try to make it convincing? - but just changing your look
does not ensure acting, it means that the make-up department did a great work
and you carried the look well but you still need to act once you get out of
that look...] and the biggest flaw of all - NO story.
The
story is such that it has no highs, no lows, no ‘clutch at the seat in worry
and then pry away your fingers from the sponge in relief’ - no nothing. It is
boring and anti climactic and all of this means that director Samar Shaikh
needs to work very hard and choose better stories to work with and also draw
out performances from every department because as of now he has a film which
has nothing to offer in any department...except the make up - they did a good
job.
However one thing must be commended and encouraged. It is a film with a woman leading the pack and for that the producers (Dia Mirza, Sahil Sanga and Reliance Entertainment) must be congratulated. Just hope the next time they get a better story and script and not reply solely on an actor's willingness to don different garbs. It may grab eyeballs but it does not make for good viable cinema.
Verdict - Can totally pass it.
