By Subhash K. Jha
Bhaiaji Superhit: Starring, Sunny Deol, Preity Zinta, Arshad Warsi, Ameesha Patel, Shreyas Talpade; Directed by Neerraj Pathak. Rating: ***(3 stars)
What does a UP Bhaiyya-Gangster do when his beloved wife leaves him? He gets a failed braggart director from Bollywood to make a film on his marital love story to win back his wife. The complications that follow are the stuff Shakespeare would have dug out of his creative chest were his comedies into pulp humour.
If you are not too sold on refined humour and if you can appreciate a comedy of errors that does not resort to double meanings then Bhaiaji Superhit could provide you with some amount of of hilarity.
Sunny Deol's Bhaiyaji act is replete with sense of startled crime-lording, as though the character can't help wonder how a man who is such lamb before his wife could pull the trigger on his enemies with such arresting aplomb!
Deol's dhai kilo ka haath is now sportingly projected to parody his earlier macho self.
And when in the second wife another Deol shows up (yes a double role!) all squeaky-voiced meek and mousy we know for sure that Deol is now at a stage when he doesn't mind parodying himself.
He gets some terrific support from his two principal male co-stars Arshad Warsi and Shreyas Talpade, both of whom are reliably strong with their comic timings.
Shreyas plays the puffed-up flop director with a swaggering bustle he seems to enjoy the script's anarchic wit. Talpade's Bengali screenwriter's character is so earnest in his corny creativity he makes us laugh at his silly sincerity. These are actors who can never fail a script even if the script fails them.
But the real surprise of the show is Preity Zinta, playing a fiery gangster's no-nonsense wife she manages to avert her urbanity to embrace her loud unpolished jealous wife's role with lipsmacking relish.
It's good to see Zinta back on camera and that too in an image-defying role.
There are several accomplished actors like Pankaj Tripathy, Sanjay Mishra, Brajesh Kala, Mukul Dev, Jaideep Ahlawat and Pankaj Jha who show up in extended cameos. The screenplay doesn't always know what to do with all the actors.
Everybody seems to instinctively grab the inherent wackiness of the goings-on.
Not to be taken seriously, the proceedings are done in raucous colours that sometimes exasperate with their exaggerated humour. Most of the time the film's writers (Neerraj Pathak, Aakash Pandey) get the right shades into rites of burlesque. We can't help chuckle at the cockamamie comedy.
This is a loud colourful over-the-top homage to hoary tradition of Bollywood's formula films where the outrageous met the melodramatic without mishap. A lot happens in Bhaiaji Superhit. You know you are in this for the sense of unbridled reckless adventure.
It does get a bit too much at times. But don't mind. Bhaiaji Deol wants Bhabhiji Zinta back at any cost. All blazing guns and spoofy drama, this is where you want to go this weekend if you looking for some cheesy fun.
