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10:36 AM
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You have Vidya Balan, boldly going with a wardrobe where no Bollywood heroine has gone before. You have Emran Hashmi too, carrying on with a deadpan face for over two hours and proving deadpan doesn't necessarily mean dead acting. They make an odd couple and, though they don't quite share the best of screen chemistry, give you the only reason to watch Ghanchakkar.
The odd-couple equation shared by the film's lead duo is rivalled only by its two-member supporting cast- Rajesh Sharma and Namit Das as two goons who provide the occasional laughs. A quirky twist of plot here and there, a hilarious bank heist, plus a faint hint of gore in end are other notable add-ons you get in this film. What else? Not much.
Rajkumar Gupta's new film promised to be a full-o'-beans comic thriller going by its promos and posters. The initial portions give you the sporadic LOL moments. But the suspense never really comes alive owing to sketchy characterisation. For a thriller, the film loses pace midway and never quite picks up.
For Gupta, who made the far more sombre Aamir and No One Killed Jessica before, this was probably let-your-hair-down stuff. There is no resisting the dark shades for him, though. Despite the comparitively lighter tone of his new film, you notice a trace of the intense all along. Ghanchakkar unfolds as a breezy tale set against a murky backdrop of crime. This is the story of Sanju (Emraan), master safe cracker who plans to give up crime for live a life of bliss with his uber-Punjabi wife Neetu (Vidya Balan).
For this, he needs to pull off one last job. So, he agrees to partner a couple of crooks (Rajesh Sharma and Namit Das) on a bank robbery. The heist goes off well, Sanju is given the task of hiding the stash and the three temporarily split.
Twist in the tale comes soon enough, when the two crooks return three months later to reclaim the loot. Sanju it seems has had an accident and is suffering from amnesia. Forget recalling where he hid the money, he fails to even recognise the two. With no other option, the crooks declare they will live with Sanju and Neetu in their home, till he regains his memory.
The drama in the screenplay (Gupta and Parvez Shaikh) was supposed to kick off at this point. Is Sanju merely pretending to be an amnesiac because he wants to keep the entire loot? Could Neetu know more than she pretends, and does she plan to double cross her husband?
The mystery about these two characters and the situation they are in was meant to pique audience curiosity. It never quite happens because Ghanchakkar takes too long to narrate its story.
Vidya makes most of her crazy Punjabin who spews Cosmo and Vogue as inspirations in style as smoothly as she mouths Punjabi accent in her Hindi (minute becomes minnt; bharosa is bhrossa). Emraan holds your attention despite a role low on melodrama.
There is a recurring dinner table joke all through the film where Neetu asks Sanju about the food, "Kaisa hai?" The reply, more than once: "Namak kam hai." Our sentiment too, about this film.
