Everyone has heard of the film Bombay to Goa. It is a classic and has great performances by Amitabh Bachchan, Mehmood and Aruna Irani to name a few. The undiluted gun and middle class element that was present in the film can never be taken away from it. Comedy, as a genre, has been left unexplored while our film babus choose to overdo the drama bit. But off late, a new creed of directors and film makers are realizing this and comedy is the new king of films.
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Why films? Take our daily TV programs. After the whole saas bahu saga has been told and retold yet again, the comedy shows that rose out of nowhere brought magic on the screen. It also gave scope for a lot of undiscovered talent and today Johnny Lever is not the only comedian that people know of.
This brings us to the film Bombay to Goa – not the old one, but the new one. After hearing the name, you would expect to get a cheap rip off of the original, but that is not true. The film is about two average Joes – Lal [Sunil Pal] and Das [Vijay Raaz]. While the former has a burning desire to get rich quick, the latter is a loud mouthed bad tempered driver who recently lost his job. Now by a stroke of luck, Lal wins 2 lakhs and the two buddies decide to start a travel agency. Only problem is, they don’t have enough finance. So what they do is go to Chor Bazaar and get all the essential parts of a bus and decide to build it themselves. They split the work. While Das gets down to actually making the bus, Lal gets passengers for their maiden trip. He promises 16 unsuspecting people an amazing trip on a palace on wheels to Goa. But when the group takes a look at the broken down bus, they demand their money back. Somehow the duo manages to convince them and the trip starts with a lot of excitement when a treasure hunt comes their way.
Talking about the actors, well, they are all great at what they do. There is an eclectic mix of the new and the old and they make a pretty appealing dish. Special mention must be made of Sunil Pal and Raju Srivastava – they have amazing screen presence and a wonderful comic timing. The rest are good too, but as they say “too many cooks spoil the broth”.
The direction by Raj Pendurkar shows promise, but even that does not help the storyline, which is too crammed. The trouble is that the writers have tried to put in everything and that sort of makes it skewed. Nevertheless, it is a fun movie with quite a few gags and laughs and if you are in the mood to catch something light hearted and entertaining, this won’t be such a bad choice.
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Two stars for this movie :O