Friday, May 11, 2007

Bheja Fry


I saw this movie at 2200 hours in Bangalore, where I saw about 150 sullen, tired, mentally exhausted people come in and leave 2 hours later happy, smiling and refreshed.

Its definitely funny, relying more on dialogue, situations and the sheer screen personality of Bharat Bhushan (brilliantly played by Vinay Pathak – who also excelled in the other great comedy, Khosla ka Ghosla). The story is truly about Bharat Bhushan’s interactions with Ranjeet Thadani (very well played by Rajat Kapoor – remember Mahesh from Dil Chahta Hai). Ranjeet is a music talent agent, married to Sheetal (Sarika) and his main stress buster is his Friday night dinner with some friends – where they usually get an idiot / non-talented person, get him to perform and amuse themselves making fun of him (without hurting his feelings, if Ranjeet is to be believed). Based on an acquaintances recommendation, Ranjeet invites Bharat to come along to his dinner. Bharat works in the income tax department, is a very sincere self-styled singer and has some, lets just say ‘unique’ habits. He comes over to meet Ranjeet at his place before the dinner and that’s when things start to go wrong.

This is not a laugh a minute movie – it takes time to build but soon you start smiling and then suddenly, almost inspite yourself, you begin to laugh. You laugh at Ranjeet’s helplessness (his back gives way), at Bharat’s well-intentioned but usually misfiring attempts to help and most of all the amazing character of Bharat himself – they don’t make them like him anymore !

Among the unique habits Bharat possesses is his desire to show his ‘album’ to everyone he meets, the way the album is wrapped in a shaadi ki mithai wala polythene, the way he shuts his suitcase, the way he calls people up (the glee with which he always informs Ramesh ‘its ringing’ is contagious), his vocabulary (shudh Hindi), his repeated references to his Dad, his forgetfulness and the way he just never loses faith / never stops trying to help…And Ranjeet, despite desperately wanting to get rid of him, just has to keep on approaching him for help as one problem gives way to another !

I think we all identify with bits of Mr Bharat Bhushan – we’ve all probably encountered people who’ve got some traits of his. Also, and I don’t know if its just me, but the one thing that for me makes this movie just reach ‘Very Good’ and not ‘Great’ is that I do not like laughing too much at someone else’s expense…I cannot make fun of idiots like Ranjeet and so there were some moments where I did squirm / did not identify at all with him.

The rest though, was pure fun. Its apparently a remake of a French movie ‘Le Dinner de cons’ but that doesn’t matter. It was almost a shame when the movie ended !

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Fabulous,Fantastic, awesum....i just simply loved the movie....finally we agree on sum movie....Am going to watch it again....