Written by: Robin Bhatt & Yunus Sajawal
Directed by: Rohit Shetty
Starring: Kareena Kapoor, Ajay Devgan, Mithun Chakraborty, Shreyas Talpade, Mukesh Tiwari, Arshad Warsi, Johnny Lever
The Golmaal team is back, after the hugely successful 1 and 2. The team is bigger–the franchise is getting bigger with each movie and so are the expectations. The first Golmaal started a trend of sorts: no-brainer clean comedy with a huge start-cast. One expects nothing but laughs from this franchise. The presence or absence of the storyline does not matter as long as they keep the laughs coming. Golmaal-3 follows on the same line as the previous two: no logic but it’s a laughathon.
The movie is about the angry young man Gopal (Ajay Devgan)–who does not like fingers being pointed at him (literally), as he loses his temper and winds up breaking the fingers–his foul-mouthed girlfriend Daboo (Kareena Kapoor) and his stammering brother Laxman (Shreyas Talpade), who live with their mother Geetha (Ratha Pathak). They do petty business with a gangster Vasooli’s (Mukesh Tiwari) investment. Sailing is smooth until they get competition in the form of three scheming brothers Madhav (Arshad Warsi), Laxman (Kunal Khemu) and the dumb Lucky (Tusshar Kapoor), who all live with their father Pritam (Mithun Chakraborty) also do petty business with a gangster Puppy’s (Johnny Lever) investment. The two groups try to outsmart one another, resulting in losses to both of them. As fate would have it, Pritham turns out to be the long lost lover of Geetha…and they decide to get married which only adds to the chaos. How their grown up children take the decision, and what they do to outsmart one another at home, it is depicted in the most hilarious manner possible.
[ad#longpost]Each and every actor involved in the movie ensures his presence is felt. All of them have excellent comic timing and it’s laugh-a-minute until the last thirty minutes, where the movie has its share of small twists and takes the emotional path before the outlandishly hilarious climax thanks to Johnny Lever’s involvement. All the actors are in their elements with the dialogue worth a mention. This surely has to be Mithun’s best performance in years. He displays his impeccable comic timing. The flashback scenes and his “disco dancer” dance sequence are worthy of applause. The scene involving him and Prem Chopra (as Geetha’s father) set in the 70s is howlarious. Scenes just cannot get better than those, and the dialogue is the main reason for it.
Johnny Lever is at his best as the short term, split personality don. After a long time, he has finally gotten a meaty role and shows why he is the best in business. The rest of the ensemble all give their best as well. The screenplay is the main backbone of the movie and the actors help deliver the right impact. The story does remind you of the highly successful Ashok Kumar movie of the 70s, Khatta Meetha, which had a similar plot. The drawback of this film is the emotional sequence towards the climax, but again that has been the trademark of this franchise: hilarous events till the climax and a small twist and emotional track.
Music is by Pritham: the songs are passable, and the one chartbuster material being “Ale,” the slightly remixed version of “disco dancer” is good. Director Rohit Shetty has struck gold with this one as well. Full credit to him, the movie would have fallen flat if not for him getting the best of out of his cast! He ensures the action director within him is still alive with the explosive pre-climax and the climactic action sequences and yes, you again have his trademark car crashes. However, the action and the climax do drag on for a while, the movie could have been trimmed further. But then, in a mass market entertaining film like this, you tend to have long action sequences to appease a certain section of the audience.
There are several references to old Hindi movies and characters and also the dialogue constitutes a majority of Hindi proverbs remixed–this knowledge is a must for the lines to have their desired impact. Overall, it is a complete package: it has a great screenplay, loads of funny characters, hilarious scenes, good action sequences, a no-brainer storyline and commendable acting. If you are game for a comedy without logic, this one is for you!
