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Bunty Aur Babli
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'Bunty Aur Babli' Two crooks on the run

By Nitika Desai
Film critic, ApunKaChoice.Com

Throw logic and rationale aside. Take an interesting story of two small-town characters, turn them into two crooks conning all and sundry, add ample doses of hilarious situations and spice it up with an ‘item’ and you have the laughathon named Bunty Aur Babli.

Bunty aka Rakesh (Abhishek Bachchan) spends most of his waking hours dreaming about schemes to make big money. His mind is a fertile ground for craziest of ideas to turn rags into riches. He is not a soul to be caged by the expectations of his ticket collector father.

In

another UP town lives the starry-eyed Babli aka Vimmi (Rani Mukherjee). She spends her time watching mirror and dreaming of becoming Miss India someday. But the reality is that her parents want her to make laddus and marry, willy-nilly, some ‘gharelu munda’. She runs off to realize her dreams.

Circumstances bring together Bunty and Babli, the two ambitious souls with holes in their pockets but grandiose dreams in their heads. The two chum up. And thus is formed the team of two tricksters who con people, strike un-imaginary hoax deals (like leasing out Taj Mahal) and loot banks. Businessmen, investors, politicians, hoteliers – anyone with whom Bunty and Babli spend some time is later left minus his/her assets.

B&B become legends. The two unassuming swindlers hit headlines across the country for their daring and imaginative cons and robberies.

But one cop, Dashrath Singh (Amitabh Bachchan) has vowed to bring the two crooks to the book of law.

Director Shaad Ali could not take much credit for his directorial debut Saathiya (which many critics claimed was starkly similar to Mani Ratnam’s ‘Alay Payuthe’) but he deserves a pat on the back for Bunty Aur Babli.

The first half of the film is extremely engaging – the encounters between Bunty and his father (Raj Babbar), and between Babli and her parents (Puneet Issar and Kiran Joneja Sippy) are amusing.

The rustic feel is amply captured through countryside setting of the movie and the outfits and mannerisms of the two protagonists. The film moves at a breezy pace in the first half and hits the interval mark with an impressive entry by Amitabh Bachchan.

The second half slackens in pace. The story veers off from fun and frolic into a bit of melodrama. Some of the coups that B&B pull off are predictable, but the others are cleverly conceived.

Abhishek Bachchan and Rani Mukherjee deliver brilliant performances. At the face of it, it may seem that their roles did not require much histrionics, but once you pay attention to the comic nuances the two bring in their characters, you cannot help appreciate their talent.

Needless to say, Amitabh Bachchan fills his scenes with tremendous energy with his mere presence. However, his ‘drunk’ sequence with Abhishek is not entirely funny. It is bit far stretched.

The much-talked-about item featuring Aishwarya Rai with the Big B and Abhi is awkwardly placed in the movie. But in a film whose story defies logic, you can’t complain.

All in all, Bunty Aur Babli is a light-hearted flick with tongue-in-cheek humor. The movie is no laugh riot but it is indeed a sweet tickler. It will definitely appeal to kids and teens

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