Forced gags and all that
When David Dhawan spoke about retaining the soul of the original “Chashme Buddoor” in his version, I hoped for a miraculous glimpse of the sweetness and innocence of Sai Paranjpye’s 1981 classic in his remake, at least in courtesy form.
But forget retaining, Dhawan goes all out to kill that very soul. And going by his last film (“Rascals”), this should have been a more realistic expectation.
Dhawan is known for some fairly entertaining movies, with Govinda as his muse. And his comedy though titillating has never been downright boorish, until he made “Rascals”.
“Chashme Buddoor” is well but a toned down version of the Sanjay Dutt-Ajay Devgn disaster, if there can be any worse example of slaughter of a good old classic.
A simple and rib-tickling tale of romance and friendship is turned into an extravaganza of crudeness with this remake. Except for the far and few unintentional laughs, the humour never rises above this conversation:
Joseph (Rishi Kapoor): Main tujhe maar maar ke nanga kar doonga.
Jai (Sidharth): Maarna hain toh maaro lekin aap romantic kyun ho rahe ho?
Got it? Never mind. For the ones who haven’t seen the older version, the story goes like this: Siddharth (Ali Zafar), Jai (Sidharth) and Omi (Divyendu Sharma) are flatmates and best buddies. The flirtatious Jai and Omi are forever chasing girls and fall for their neighbour Seema (Taapsee Pannu). Each of them tries to win over Seema with their tactics but in vain.
On the other hand, Seema, who is a run-away bride hiding in her uncle’s (Anupam Kher, in a double role playing both Seema’s father and uncle) house, falls in love with the studious Sid and vice versa. While her father (Kher) is paranoid about her marrying a civilian as opposed to a military man, her uncle tries his best to hook her up with the civilian Sid.
Dhawan adds a parallel love track of Joseph (Rishi Kapoor) and Josephine (Lilette Dubey), who further bring down the famous ‘chamko’ scene from the original to bits. This “Chashme Buddoor” is a big let down to a film which had nothing but dollops of simplicity going for it.
The remake, on the contrary, is annoyingly loud and pompous. We even see a parody of Dhawan’s own film songs in a bid to portray the movie-manic characters. There’s a weird recycled ‘dhishkiyaon’ version of the Govinda-Raveena Tandon song ‘Ankhiyon se goli maare’ too from the film “Bade Miyan Chote Miyan”.
Among the actors, Rishi Kapoor disappoints the most, simply for being in a film like this.
The rest just ham their way through, including Anupam Kher. For art’s sake, Dhawan should really take a break from movies.
Fans of Paranjpye’s “Chashme Buddoor”, please steer clear of this poor imitation. Watch the original one again instead.
When David Dhawan spoke about retaining the soul of the original “Chashme Buddoor” in his version, I hoped for a miraculous glimpse of the sweetness and innocence of Sai Paranjpye’s 1981 classic in his remake, at least in courtesy form. But forget retaining, Dhawan goes all out to kill that very...
When David Dhawan spoke about retaining the soul of the original “Chashme Buddoor” in his version, I hoped for a miraculous glimpse of the sweetness and innocence of Sai Paranjpye’s 1981 classic in his remake, at least in courtesy form.
But forget retaining, Dhawan goes all out to kill that very soul. And going by his last film (“Rascals”), this should have been a more realistic expectation.
Dhawan is known for some fairly entertaining movies, with Govinda as his muse. And his comedy though titillating has never been downright boorish, until he made “Rascals”.
“Chashme Buddoor” is well but a toned down version of the Sanjay Dutt-Ajay Devgn disaster, if there can be any worse example of slaughter of a good old classic.
A simple and rib-tickling tale of romance and friendship is turned into an extravaganza of crudeness with this remake. Except for the far and few unintentional laughs, the humour never rises above this conversation:
Joseph (Rishi Kapoor): Main tujhe maar maar ke nanga kar doonga.
Jai (Sidharth): Maarna hain toh maaro lekin aap romantic kyun ho rahe ho?
Got it? Never mind. For the ones who haven’t seen the older version, the story goes like this: Siddharth (Ali Zafar), Jai (Sidharth) and Omi (Divyendu Sharma) are flatmates and best buddies. The flirtatious Jai and Omi are forever chasing girls and fall for their neighbour Seema (Taapsee Pannu). Each of them tries to win over Seema with their tactics but in vain.
On the other hand, Seema, who is a run-away bride hiding in her uncle’s (Anupam Kher, in a double role playing both Seema’s father and uncle) house, falls in love with the studious Sid and vice versa. While her father (Kher) is paranoid about her marrying a civilian as opposed to a military man, her uncle tries his best to hook her up with the civilian Sid.
Dhawan adds a parallel love track of Joseph (Rishi Kapoor) and Josephine (Lilette Dubey), who further bring down the famous ‘chamko’ scene from the original to bits. This “Chashme Buddoor” is a big let down to a film which had nothing but dollops of simplicity going for it.
The remake, on the contrary, is annoyingly loud and pompous. We even see a parody of Dhawan’s own film songs in a bid to portray the movie-manic characters. There’s a weird recycled ‘dhishkiyaon’ version of the Govinda-Raveena Tandon song ‘Ankhiyon se goli maare’ too from the film “Bade Miyan Chote Miyan”.
Among the actors, Rishi Kapoor disappoints the most, simply for being in a film like this.
The rest just ham their way through, including Anupam Kher. For art’s sake, Dhawan should really take a break from movies.
Fans of Paranjpye’s “Chashme Buddoor”, please steer clear of this poor imitation. Watch the original one again instead.
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