First of all, let’s get over with the remake status of this project which simply remains incomparable with the original Sai Pranjpe film released in 1981. And incomparable because the cult classic comedy still enjoys a truly exceptional status in every must watch list of Hindi Cinema today, even after more than three decades of its existence due to some worthy reasons. Actually the film is considered to be that important not only because of its charming, enjoyable and immensely believable portrayal of the life lived by 3 students sharing the same room. But also due to the way it showed the city of Delhi as an essential character of the film along with intelligently using its beautiful soundtrack by Rajkamal based on Hindustani Classical Music in the backdrop. So I am simply not comparing the present version with its original in any form whatsoever for the same reasons.Now taking it as an individual film, the present CHASHME BADDOOR largely works due to its 3 major merits as follows. One, it’s a film which starts off with the young feel and duly maintains its light entertaining feel throughout till the end without any dull moments as such. Second, it has some enjoyable performances by the three protagonists who keep the laughter coming in through their well written dialogues delivered convincingly. And third is its gorgeous & vivacious leading lady who can easily be called our new age Preity Zinta, with a great infectious smile and screen presence. The girl provides the much needed lift to the film through her pleasing personality and acts well too along with the three boys resulting in a fairly likable film targeting the youth in particular.
It’s a true remake as they call, since it uses the same storyline of its original with only a few changes which don’t hamper the pace or feel of its basic structure. The veteran director David Dhawan very cleverly comes out of his own shell of some fixed patterns and delivers a film which takes no help from any childish sequences as seen in his earlier films and purely sticks to the logical, engaging scenes written around its key characters. Further it was indeed an intelligent move to add all the current net age elements into the script (including the sexual ones), quite graciously without going into the genre of a sex comedy as was being feared. In short, the good news is that here we have a young and different David Dhawan having a good time with his fresh talented cast after a long gap.
The film proves to be fine entertainer till the interval and one expects the graph to rise from here leading to an exciting culmination in the second half. But the narration drops a little post intermission and then gets back on the track soon mainly relying on some amusingly written dialogues serving as its big savior. Sadly as the things begin to impress again, we have the famous lovable sequence of “CHAMKO Washing Powder” falling flat completely and then the film simply ends on a hurried note without providing the much awaited crescendo in its climax (which could have been different). Cinematography & Art Direction brings in the desired colourful freshness in the project and the background score gels well with its comical theme written around love, jealousy and friendship. The songs sound energetic while you are watching them but as usual they remain the most unwanted feature of the film, fitted in all the wrong places deliberately, without any basic purpose. And they could have easily done with some lesser tracks in the film (apart from the famous original tracks used) to make it more short & sweet. However despite of these evident drawbacks, CHASHME BADDOOR remains a light enjoyable film which largely provides the entertainment factor, you have purchased the ticket for in totality.
Coming to its performances, Ali Zafar scores well in the role of the most sophisticated one amongst the three college friends. Siddharth & Divyendu Sharma perform their over the top, loud roles in a fine way with Divyendu making the most out of his poetic verses. The debutant (in Hindi films), Taapsee Pannu is the main attraction of the film as stated before, looking great in her short dresses. Rishi Kapoor once again surprises you with all his body tattoos and a new trendy look reminding his good old image of a romantic lover, getting a brilliant support from Lillete Dubey playing his newly found love interest. On the other hand both Anupam Kher and Bharti Achrekar couldn’t rise above the routine with Ayaz Khan having nothing to do in the script till the end.In all, the new CHASHME BADDOOR works on the same spirit of its three decades old original and provides you an enjoyable time in the theater as promised. Its one of the better (if not great) works of director David Dhawan wherein he rediscovers himself working with the youngsters. And thankfully the film is not a patch on its basic source material like many of the recent remakes we have seen in this year.
Having said that, I do have a different viewpoint on this latest Bollywood craze of making remakes. And I have stated this earlier too in my reviews that a remake is unarguably a smart way to avoid all that hard-work and brainstorming required to work upon a new script. It obviously saves the time, energy and resources too if one can get an already hit script to start with as a fresh project. But if only remakes have to made as a safe proposal, then why not make the remakes of other regional language films appreciated in our own country (as Bollywood has been doing more often) or go in for the foreign languages films which cannot be seen or opted for by a common man, only exposed to watching Hindi Films as his fixed routine.
In other words, making a Hindi remake of an old Hindi Classic only, really looks like as if we are left with nothing more to serve to our thoughtful viewers other than giving them the same old dishes in a new plate. Ending on that questionable note, though CHASHME BADDOOR proves to be a largely fine entertainer as a remake, yet it cannot have all those mesmerizing key features of its original like the road side Paan Wala, the black motor-cycle referred to as Kaali Ghorhi, the Mandi House theater shows, Talkatora Garden, Tooty Fruity and many more due to the time period constraint. Still taking it positively, I hope Bollywood gets over with this avoidable trend soon (of making versions of their own Hindi masterpieces) and gives us some worth watching original works to cherish for long.
Ratings : 3 / 5 (With a strong urge to watch the original cult classic re-released on the same Friday along with its remake probably for the first time in the history of Hindi Cinema.)
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