Bhagam Bhag: Entangled in mirth!

Don’t look back while you run. There may be gangsters, cops and hoodlums behind you. Bhagam Bhag, as the name suggests and the director promises, has a mix-up of chases, confusion, comedy and more. Though it isn’t the regular cop-gangster story, but a whole lot of people throwing each other into trouble, due to mix-ups, and more mix-ups.

As Govinda makes a comeback in an area which used to be his exclusive territory, a complete laugh riot is created with the current ruling laughter champions of the Box Office. He completes Priyadarshan’s trio in Bhagam Bhag, pinning himself besides the classy characters of Akshay Kumar and Paresh Rawal. Though Govinda seems to lose his old charm at certain occasions, the rest manage to keep the audience rolling in laughter, with hilarious dialogues and comedy bordering on the loud side at times. Suneil Shetty’s bit is missing, we have got used to him as the quintessential simpleton in Priyan’s movies.

Bhagam Bhag sees the momentum builds up and the plot keeps getting entangled further with each scene until it finally explodes in the last sequence, when all characters end up creating a ruckus in the Big Ben! We trusted the director to have done better than that, though. Champak Seth (Paresh Rawal) and his troupe, who get their golden chance to perform in London, are looking for a heroine to play the leading lady in their show. But they find trouble instead: a brief case full of heroin, a woman Nisha (Lara Dutta), who agrees to play the part, but disappears right before the show, a pack of gangsters determined to kill them, and the cops.



Though Priyan’s style of storytelling amuses throughout, confusion replaces laughter towards the end, when things get so muddled up that it is difficult to get the pieces together, unless the final sequence comes to the audience’s rescue, when everything pops out suddenly. Though Paresh Rawal is his usual entertaining self, sharing an interesting equation with the others, Akshay Kumar is getting even better at his craft. Tanushree Dutta does a cameo in the movie, while Rajpal Yadav as Gullu, the helpful cab driver, is thoroughly entertaining.

A movie that can be enjoyed to the core; keep the logic locked up safely at home. Watch out for the laughter riot!

Kabul Express: Right on Track!

Succeeding movies like the stylish Dhoom or the melodramatic Baabul and Vivaah, comes Kabul Express- laidback and subtle. The routine cinegoer should look before he leaps to watch it! There’s no leading lady, no songs and no romance. Only a short and crisp story- a little below two hours- set in a foreign land, that won’t allow you to walk out until the action is over.

Here you have two TV journalists trapped in a post-Taliban Afghanistan with Imran Khan Afridi (Salman Shahid), a Talibani refugee trying to flee back to homeland Pakistan. He lands with the two- Suhel Khan (John Abraham) and Jai Kapoor (Arshad Warsi) and an American girl, Jessica (Linda Arsenio) from Reuters. While they try to get their ‘scoop’ out of this special encounter, the ‘Talib’ routes his escape through them.

Kabul Express is a subtle comment on the way the Taliban regime and worse, the war, ruined Afghan life. The dusty, devastated landscape of Afghanistan is the perfect visual relief one could have asked for from the gaudy sets of multi-starrer movies. A place where Indians are recognised through “Amitabh Bachchan! Shahrukh Khan! Amir Khan!”. Certain shots are reminiscent of movies focusing on post-Taliban regions, like those by Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami.

The plot goes a level further. It shows the humane face of the Talibani man; his love for Indian cigarettes and Hindi songs like ‘Main fikr ko dhuen mein udata chala gaya…’, which he hums with the Indians while the Afghani cab driver, Khyber (Hanif Hum Ghum) fumes at their amity. But at the end of it, while they will have to edit portions of the friendliness from their story, Imran has a surprise for himself in his own country.

You see the standard Arshad Warsi as the cameraperson. Any other actor would have made the character fade out. John fans should be making a beeline to the cinemas as soon as possible; the man has got his due after a long time. Though a journalist as suave, doing push-ups early morning is rare in the real world. Arshad is more convincing as the smoking, complaining and witty camera person.

The subtle humour, an insight into the Afghani war, will need to be understood well before you could swallow Kabul Express in one whole.