Ghanchakkar Review

 

You expect nothing less than excellence from the director who in his debut film itself (Aamir) delivered a cracker of a story. He proved that he wasn't a one film wonder by following it up with yet another startling film No One Killed Jessica. For his third film the filmmaker chose to turn the tides by going for a suspence comedy instead of the usual serious drama that he has attempted till now. Does he succeed? We tell you.
Married couple Sanjay Atre (Emraan Hashmi) and Neetu (Vidya Balan) are a team of former dupers who have robbed enough to last comfortably for a few years. However, greed takes the better of them when Sanjay receives a call from Pandit (Rajesh Sharma) who in turn has a mega heist planned. Lured by the humungous amount of money Sanjay gives in to the master plan of both Pandit and Idris (Namit Das). The robbery is executed and the trio (Sanjay, Pandit and Idris) decide to meet three months later to distribute the money which till then will remain with Sanjay. 

 Three months later, both Pandit and Idris contact Sanjay only to realise he doesn't recognise them anymore, has lost his memory in an accident and knows nothing of the stolen money. How messed up his life gets once Pandit and Idris hold him at gun point to find out their money is what follows through the rest of the plot.
The film takes off interestingly. Right from the dinner table conversation of Sanjay and Neetu to the quirky personalities of the two and the introduction of both Pandit and Idris, everything sucks you right into the film and makes you laugh and guffaw.
What raises the bar higher is the absolutely hilarious bank robbery sequence that the trio conducts wearing masks of Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan and Utpal Dutt. Each of them wears masks according to their personality and the expressions of the masks especially that of Utpal Dutt will leave you in splits completely!
However, from there starts the downfall in the screenplay. The story unfolds and you soon realise that it has nothing more to offer than the one line plot of memory loss. To simplify what we mean, the story that you see in a two minute trailer of the film is what you are catered to in 137 minutes of a run time where the one line plot gets stretched like an elastic band and you are made to witness a highly predictable story.
One of the biggest point of a comedy is to have situations that make the audience laugh, however, Rajkumar Gupta falters majorly in creating any laughable situation in the second half. What's worse, you sniff the entire suspense during the interval period itself making the whole second half just a boring tirade with an outrageously unbelievable end.
It comes as a disappointment when the filmmaker resorts to convenient placing of sub-plots to stray your mind from a suspense that you already have solved. Sad, that filmmakers still undermine the audience of today!
Coming to acting, Emraan Hashmi in his first ever comedy barely gets any comic part for he is forever struggling to regain his lost memory in the film. Vidya Balan on the other hand, who made headlines for her horrid dressing in the film, tries too hard to be a loud Punjabi wife who is obsessed with fashion and loves to read fashion magazines. Unfortunately, her efforts go in vain for neither do her quirky humour nor her acting evokes any laughter. It's a huge disappointment to watch Vidya falter even with the Punjabi accent.
Both Rajesh Sharma and Namit Das start off really well however their histrionics also get repeated till you get bored of them too.
To sum it up, in a bid to make a comedy on memory loss, the filmmaker himself forgets his script. A disappointing fare!


                  

                         RATING: (1.5 / 5) : Poor