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Bachke Rehna Re Baba
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'Bachke Rehna Re Baba' Damp Squib

By Nitika Desai
Film critic, ApunKaChoice.Com

Comedy and sex can make an excellent combination – laughs punctuated with arousals. The formula did work for Hollywood filmmaker David Mirkin’s movie ‘Heartbreakers’. But the Indian rehash of the movie is simply a damp squib. It neither tickles nor titillates.

Bachke Rehna Re Baba tells the story of a mausi and her bhanji (aunt and niece). Mausi Rukhmini (Rekha) is deft at conning rich men. Years of experience have made her discreet enough to not fall in love with the man she dupes. Her bhanji Padmini (Mallika Sherawat) is still in grooming stages, still not emotionally-controlled enough to pull off a con on her own. But she has oodles of sex appeal.

The

modus operandi of the two sensuous swindlers is thus: Rukhmini lures rich bakras into marrying her. Then, according to their plan, Padmini seduces Rukhmini’s new husband. Rukhmini catches the two in the act and then files for divorce, claiming big money in alimony for her emotional trauma at husband’s infidelity.

One man to fall victim to the mausi bhanji duo is the loud-mouthed Punjabi Monty Bagga (Paresh Rawal).
His marriage with Rukhmini remains unconsummated on their suhaag raat, and in the heat of the moment, he falls for another girl’s temptation the next day, only to be caught red-handed by Rukhmini. Divorce and the damage done!

He doesn’t know that the girl who seduced him was none other than Rukhmini’s bhanji.

The mausi-bhanji move to Mauritius to claim their next victim – a filthy rich Gutka baron Fakirchand Mansukhani (Satish Shah).

On the sidelines, Padmini finds another bakra, Raghu (Karan Khanna), a young restaurateur who is getting big offers of money for his place.

Before Rukhmini could pull off her con fully, Mansukhani dies. And at this propitious moment when she is carrying his dead body, drops by Monty Bagga with a remarriage proposal.

Both mausi and bhanji are in a fix. The only way out seems to be that Padmini cons Raghu into marriage and then dupe him. But there is one problem – she is in love with the guy.

Director Govind Menon, obviously inspired by ‘Heartbreakers’, borrows heavily from the Hollywood movie. Some of the dialogues are like the Hindi translation of the ones in English and, what more, even some of the camera angles are the same.

The comedy in the movie works only at places. The skin-show by hot Mallika Sherawat, too, fails to titillate after few repetitions. Rekha and Satish Shah provide for some entertaining moments. The sequences surrounding the nanga mazdoor statue, the dinner out by Rekha and Shah (when she eats raw octopus and croons a cacophonous song), are hilarious. But such tickling moments are few and far between.

Paresh Rawal, quite unexpectedly, fails to evoke much laughter. Mallika Sherawat excels in flaunting her anatomy. Newcomer Karan Khanna is stiff before the camera.

All said, those who have seen the original movie would most likely doze off mid-way through this Bollywood rehash. Those who haven’t might extract some satisfaction out of Rekha’s comedy and Mallika’s cleavage.

Verdict: The movie’s title says it all.

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