All The Best Movie Review : The Good The Bad The Gaudy
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ALL THE BEST
The good, the bad and the gaudy
Cast: Sanjay Dutt, Ajay Devgn, Bipasha Bsu, Mughda Godse
Director: Rohit Shetty
Rating: Two and half stars
Once ‘pun a time. Referring to the household ayah, a guy trills Baharon phool barsao mera mehboob ayah hai. Quips are made about Slumdog Millionaire, and there’s this madcap moment involving Ajay Devgn (he’s dropped the `a’) sprinting after two Lady Lottas when actually he’s being chased by a bulldog. Bow wow.
To be sure there are sight-`n’-sound gags which do pay off in Rohit Shetty’s All the Best, adapted from Paritosh Painter’s stageplay Uncle Samjha Karo, which itself was cadged from the 1960s farce Right Bed, Wrong Husband. Add to that a touch of Come September (1961) and you’re likely to gobble down one helluva fusion cuisine mishmash. Hang on though. In fact, the yay-yay news is that the result is digestible, perfect for a couple of laughs, a few titters and a haw-haw bellylaugh. Hyuk nyuk.
Gratifyingly, Shetty in his bid to go the Hrishikesh Mukherjee route avoids the rude, crude and lewd. Note the excerpt from Chupke Chupke just in case you didn’t detect his noble intentions. For once, women aren’t made the butt of scabrous jokes, and wah-wah there are no homophobic cracks either. Frequently, David Dhawan has doffed his hat to Hrishida, too, but has always incurably lapsed into vulgarity of the wink-wink-snigger-kind. Shetty goes clean, as if he wanted to disinfect Mumbaiya comedy. Indeed, big brownie points to him for that.
Still the pasteurised package is, at best, fun in parts. Otherwise the pace drags (especially before Sanjay Dutt makes his entry), the editing is inexpert and the set designs belong top a Raspberry Falooda Factory. The flowers are plastic, the home décor is a salute to the Padmalaya potty-pourris, and the living room curtains, omigawd, the curtains! Gaudyness gracious me really.
The costumes are a riot. The wild variety of T-shirts convinces you to never dare to wear one in public, what with Popeye and op-art motifs. Moreover as scripted, the plot premise is as implausible as a three-rupee coin. Oink. Throughout you feel the two down-at-heel men (Devgn-Fardeen Khan), who are trying to hang on to a kesar-pista-tinted villa in Goa, could talk their problems over with Uncle Kool (Sanjay Dutt). He’s not Anaconda, is he?
Why make him believe that his prospective niece-in-law is Bipasha Basu instead of Mughda Godse? Unless Uncle prefers more established heroines, the switcheroo between the two mini-skirts, could have been sorted faster than buying a Diwali firecracker. Kabaaam!
Anyway now you’re into manic malarkey. Uncle Dutt likes Bipashaji, is indifferent to Mughdaji, conducts this at cross-purposes conversation with the Phool Barsao Aayah (Ashwini Kalsekar), deal with don Johnny Lever whose hijinks give you fever, plus a wacko in polka dots who keeps snarling, “Just cheeeeeel.” A Himesh Reshammiya fan he?
For a rib-tickler the finale is a bit tame, what with goons with faces covered in boot polish fetching up to talk in Labutto (Lishotto?..can’t figure out) lingo. What Labutto is you’ll never find out, but it seems Uncle was carrying a potful of nimboo achaar for the country’s President. By this point, you’re looking at your wrist watch repeatedly. Guys brevity is the soul of wit. Remember?
In the behind-the-camera scenario, the script is remarkable essentially for its witty dialogue. Someone wants to start a Coffee series music label to compete with T Series!!The camerawork and Pritam’s music score are not up to scratch.
Of the performances, Fardeen Khanwho’s assigned a juicy role leaves it dull and dry. Bipasha Basu and Mughda Godse flutter around in roles as skimpy as their outfits. Compared to them, Ashwini Kalsekar has a sharper sense of comic timing. Ajay Devgan is correctly restrained. By the way, several allusions are made to the Munnabhai series. Here Sanjay Dutt is okey-dokey but that’s it, just like the rest of this ha-ha-ho-hum-ha-ha enterprise..that leaves you with mixed feelings.
Good, bad, good, bad, you get the drift.
Tags: ajay devgan, All the Best, Bipasha Bsu, Movie Review, Mughda Godse, Rohit Shetty, Sanjay Dutt
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Varma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
“Referring to the household ayah, a guy trills Baharon phool barsao mera mehboob ayah hai.”
This is what I missed… the reviews we used to read in the late 70s and 80s growing up on your Sunday feature… fantastic!
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wow …compared to your write up on Blue… this one purely for the difference in the expressions that its evoked of you sounds like a must watch
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waiting for ur review on Main aur Mrs Khanna…
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This is what I was talking about Khalid Saab.
You see, you blended your unique humor while commenting on this movie’s technical/narrative aspects as well as showing correct reference to Hrishikesh Mukherjee etc.
Please keep writing in the same vein so that we can rely on your words.
after all, “Hain Duniyaa Me aur bhi ‘movie-critic’ bahut acche/kehte hain ke Khalid ka hain Andaaz-e-Bayaan aur”
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I enjoyed reading this review more than your review for “Bloo”.
“Once ‘pun a time”, “Raspberry Falooda Factory”, “kesar-pista-tinted villa”, I guess only KM can come up with such funny terms.
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labor day sale,
Thank you for making my Diwali day..am honesty pleased that the review was the sort you like..please do give me guidance always..believe me one is never too old to learn…happy d!
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Good review hai!
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Khalid Saab,
Put your life and work beside my life(!) and work(sic) and I could almost be John the baptist telling Ibn-e-Mariam that famous sentence.
I could not even dream of guiding you sir but as you probably realized by now that PFC is not like the old HT or STOI where you used to work for an one-way communication.
Here, people do and hopefully will do practise their freedom of opinion and an article will not stop the moment you put the last ‘.’ in it.
it will grow and in a good way to enrich all the PFCers with different opinions. Don’t you think that’s celebration of passion, in its true form?
Regards,
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Story is where?
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Was surprised when everyone in the theatre got all the jokes. Baharon phool barsao… yuvraj’s six sixes story…. the ayah describing the object, then proclaiming “nahi dekha”. And Khaled is right when he says shetty avoids the rude, crude and lewd. In fact there would have been a definite joke about GPL, but shetty avoids it.
But its no Hrishikesh movie resemblance ever. Rather this movie is pretty much like Golmaal 1 or Priyadarshan’s Hungama kind.
But Khaled hasnt paid much attention to the movie did he! Khaled asked “Why make him believe that his prospective niece-in-law is Bipasha Basu instead of Mughda Godse”. That aspect is pretty much explained in the movie convincingly.
Also Sanjay dutt plays Fardeen’s brother not uncle. Remember they are named Dharam veer as well. Rather there’s a joke that Bipasha cracks about Mugdha becoming Kapoor khandan’s bahu – Sanjay and not Fardeen
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Oh vinay, thanks thanks thanks..u the spot finder..i used ‘uncle’ because that’s what everyone was calling him,,and i really don’t want to unspool the ’story’ as such but give its bare bones.
I still find the mughda-bipasha mix-up unconvincing..’Uncle’ could have just been told she’s not at home..has gone out to climb Mount Everest..or whatever. As for the Hrishikesh Mukherjee allusion, Vinay, Shetty shows an excerpt from Chupke Chupke, doesn’t he?
Anyway Vinay, good to see things from your POV too.
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This is what I expected (as written below and this is what I got!! Thank you sir!! A perfect balance in this review. Makes my decision to watch or skip so easier!!
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Dear Khalid Saab:
Again, at the outset, let me reiterate, a hilarious review. And I mean this as a SERIOUS compliment. The STOI days with a cup of hot tea in one hand and your review on the other are memories that will always remain unforgettable.
We do not want you to alter your style. Your style is something that only you have manufactured, and we love you for it. But increasingly, I feel the reviews are deviating from the main objective; that of letting the consumer know whether he/she should really invest time/money in the movie.
Wonderful screenplay, good writing, etc., are the least I would expect from this movie (it would be a pleasant surprise though if they turn out to be just that). If I am spending 10$ to watch this movie, I know that I am not going to get back the whole amount. However, I might get something above average in return. Maybe good choreography, terrific photography, and high-octane stunts would do the job for me. For me, the decision whether I would spend money on BLUE this weekend only depends on this. I do not see anything mentioned about these (even if they are, they are not helping me decide). I haven’t watched the movie, but I will for sure now after reading your review and decide by myself whether the movie is really a letdown in ALL departments.
All I am saying is, keeping your sense of humor undiluted, you could expand more on these. Movies like DHOOM or BLUE are only made to impact the viewer viscerally. It is like taking a vacation. You don’t really want to think the way you think when you are on a job on a vacation, do you?
I am sorry if you feel I am accusing you of setting personal scores. I am not. I am merely mentioning something that has been talked about earlier and has been suspected to be the motive.
Regarding your reply to Labor Day, I hope you too don’t fall into the trap of a certain director (directors actually) who thinks that it is a wrong trend that his ‘creations’ are being analyzed by people who have no ‘field’ experience with film-making.
Keep writing and keep entertaining us.
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A kannda film director (Film : Housefull) has filed a case in writers guild for copying the story. I have seen this kannada movie and the story looks exactly the same !!!
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Hate to say this Khalid…Brace yourself…
1. I had no idea you were the same Khalid from TOI.
2. You sound like a snobbish Punjabi aunty…DUnno Toi loves this kind of contributer. I used to cringe at the overdose of “Jug Suraiya”. Your language is in the same vein….
3. This kind of review shtyle might work once or twice but is BORINNNNNNNNNG & IRRITATING in the long run….how much ever intellect you might throw in.
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not to pick up in the same strong vein … but DnD, raised a pretty good point that I ve seen as well … TOI does seem to be crazed with the idea of a casual slurred way of writing, be it KM, Jug Suriya or Bachi K…. it is fun to read them once in a while, but then it does get a little irritating…. can’t say this review was in the same light… but there are times that certain articles, but quite a lot of writers gets a lil irksome
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The film is plagerized from Kamal Haasan-Singeetham Srinivasa Rao’s superhit KAADHALA KAADHALA (1998) which also released in Diwali. Sanjay Dutt repeats M.S Vishwanathan’s role in hindi and is pathetic. Story by Kamal Haasan and Crazy Mohan aren’t credited and Crazy Mohan dialogues were miles ahead of this trash.
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So Paintal copies into a stage play, Kamal Hassan copies it in Kadhal (Tamil), Hegde copies it for Housefull, and years later Rohit uses it to make All the Best, ALL from Right bed, wrong husband.
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