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HALLA BOL- Mr. Santoshi Delivers What Is Expected

Director: Rajkumar Santoshi
Writer: Rajkumar Santoshi

Overall Grading: B+

Halla Bol is a typical Rajkumar Santoshi film having witty and powerful dialogues, dramatic sequences, good performances and an item song.

Halla Bol is about a film star’s awakening of inner soul and fight against system (
as usual in santoshi’s films). Story is not innovative and it is predictable but it is santoshi’s treatment that makes you engaged tin the film. Film is stretched before interval and after interval director tries to complete film in hurry. There are some ridiculous things like – a girl selling her kidney for her sister’s case, minister with his goons giving warning to Sameer Khan in court campus etc etc but it is Rajkumar Santoshi’s capability to handle the subject that we take these ridiculous things for granted. May be that is the difference between Rajkumar Santoshi and Guddu Dhanoa. Also Santoshi tries to make mass class happy by giving scenes like Ajay doing peshaab in minister’s bunglow etc.

Ajay Devgan is good but Pankaj Kapur shines everywhere in the film. He simply steals the show by his humorous and powerful dialogues and performance. Most of the good dialogues are given to him. While watching; we miss him when he is not there on screen. Vidya Balan is just show piece. Darshan Jareewala sometimes overacts.

Halla bol delivers some good dialogues (Rajkumar Santoshi & Ranjit Kapoor) like “ chot lage to jaanwar bhi rota hai… insaan wo hai jo doosro ki chot mehsoos kar sake..(Audience was clapping …)” “yeh aadmi… aapka beta… iska character badal gaya hai”… & “Tiwari… ladki pe haath uthaaya oy… tu bhi kabhi mard hua karta tha…”. And the same writers give some ridiculous dialogues also like …”mujhe apne desh ke sanvidhaan par poora vishvas hai”…. Santoshi knows very well where to put dramatic sequences and dialogues so that audience should not be bored. Some times he succeeds by making reappearance of Pankaj Kapur and sometimes fails by placing some unnecessary scenes like Ajay Devgan and Pankaj Kapur conversation scene outside Gurudwara.

Music (Sukhvinder Singh) is average. But there is line of songs after interval which is slowing the speed of the film. Editing (Steven Bernard) is not up to the mark which was one of the strengths of santoshi’s previous movies. E.g. after song “more haji piya..”, suddenly court room scenes appear which disturbs the pace of the film. Cinematography is average.

Without Pankaj Kapur; Halla Bol might turned out to be disaster. Also second half might turn out to be more effective if there were not too many songs, unnecessary, ridiculous scenes and loose editing. In short, Halla Bol is not a great movie but it is not weak like santoshi’s last movie Family. Santoshi has made Halla Bol watchable by his typical treatment.