Movie Name: Golmaal Again
Cast: Ajay Devgn, Arshad Warsi, Tusshar Kapoor, Shreyas Talpade, Kunal Khemu, Parineeti Chopra, Tabu, Prakash Raj, Neil Nitin Mukesh
Director: Rohit Shetty
Genre: Comedy
Running Time: 151 minutes
Bollywood Garam Rating: 2.5/5
The Golmaal franchise is back with another comedy re-run and this time with a taste of horror in Golmaal Again. The film opens with a song where all the actors – the ones who have been with this franchise since it started 11 years back to the new ones are introduced. While Arshad Warsi, Kunal Kemmu ride on the bonnet of moving cars in the music video, Ajay Devgn is seen doing his usual style of balancing himself between two moving cars. The movie plot, however, begins with Tabu narrating the story of the five frenemies, Gopal (Ajay Devgn), Madhav (Arshad Warsi), Lucky (Tusshar Kapoor), Laxman 1 (Shreyas Talpade) and Laxman 2 (Kunal Kemmu) and their childhood days in Jamunadas Orphanage. It is at the funeral of their mentor from the orphanage that the five are brought back together and are made to live with each other.
The beginning of the movie also tells about Tabu’s ghost busting and ghost-sighting powers.
The movie shifts from the present to the past of these five people – Madhav, Lucky and Laxman 1 are a gang of peple who scare people out of a place to vacate a plot while Gopal does the same thing by breaking people’s fingers and even their bones and Laxman 2 who sings lullabies to Gopal when it gets dark as he is scared of the dark, ghosts and black magic. However, the gags, witty one-liners and the act of teasing and pulling each other’s leg are all interlinked with a plot here: that of murders, revenge, greed, ghosts, haunted houses, walking on the walls and a lot of melodrama.
However, what comes through the film are mostly the gags and the witty jokes as the revenge saga of the ghost or ‘pure soul’ as Tabu calls her is rather an elaborate and complex one, that involves the coming together of the gang of five in Ooty where the orphanage is and live with each other and with the ghost to finally be the mediums who lead the ghost to getting her final justice. But not much justice could be meted out to the strength of the storyline, which by the end of the movie seemed like a bit of a drag with weird tactics used by the ghost to terrify the villains. The parts that hold this movie together are situations like Ajay Devgn watching Lamhe to believe it is okay to be smitten by a girl who he almost raised or Tushaar Kapoor who speaks in a broken language all through the Golmaal movies suddenly starts speaking. Moreover, actor Nana Patekar’s powerful way of speaking is used as another comic tool to tickle some funny bones.
Rohit Shetty brings in flavours from his own films and earlier Golmaal movies to even Ajay Devgn’s Singham and these add for more sparks of laughter throughout the film. Even the actors playing supporting roles – Vasuli Bhai (Mukesh Tiwari), Pappi Bhai (Johnny Lever), Babli (Sanjai Mishra), Pappu (Vrajesh Hirjee) and Inspector Dande (Murali Sharma) make the film more convincing as a horror comedy than the actual scenes trying to make horror look funny. It is mostly the first half of the movie that guarantees some funny moments. But the ghost in the movie is predictable, much before she is revealed in the film.
All said and done, it being a Rohit Shetty film with the punch line that when there is God’s wish, one should not look for logic in things, but magic – there is not much logic to be sought and found. Only thing one can find is a giant library and books hitting the villains from all corners, unlike cars smashing and breaking that were the trademark identity of earlier movies of Golmaal franchise.
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