Chashme Baddoor (2013)

That was an excellent one.

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Must See Movie...

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

First of all, let's get over with the remake status of this project which simply remains incomparable with the original Sai Pranjpe film released in 1981. And incomparable because the cult classic comedy still enjoys a truly exceptional status in every must watch list of Hindi Cinema today, even after more than three decades of its existence due to some worthy reasons.So I am simply not comparing the present version with its original in any form whatsoever for the same reasons.Now taking it as an individual film, the present CHASHME BADDOOR largely works due to its 3 major merits as follows. One, it's a film which starts off with the young feel and duly maintains its light entertaining feel throughout till the end without any dull moments as such. Second, it has some enjoyable performances by the three protagonists who keep the laughter coming in through their well written dialogues delivered convincingly. And third is its gorgeous & vivacious leading lady who can easily be called our new age Preity Zinta, with a great infectious smile and screen presence. It's a true remake as they call, since it uses the same storyline of its original with only a few changes which don't hamper the pace or feel of its basic structure. The veteran director David Dhawan very cleverly comes out of his own shell of some fixed patterns and delivers a film which takes no help from any childish sequences as seen in his earlier films and purely sticks to the logical, engaging scenes written around its key characters. Further it was indeed an intelligent move to add all the current net age elements into the script (including the sexual ones), quite graciously without going into the genre of a sex comedy as was being feared. The film proves to be fine entertainer till the interval and one expects the graph to rise from here leading to an exciting culmination in the second half. But the narration drops a little post intermission and then gets back on the track soon mainly relying on some amusingly written dialogues serving as its big savior. Sadly as the things begin to impress again, we have the famous lovable sequence of "CHAMKO Washing Powder" falling flat completely and then the film simply ends on a hurried note without providing the much awaited crescendo in its climax (which could have been different). Cinematography & Art Direction brings in the desired colourful freshness in the project and the background score gels well with its comical theme written around love, jealousy and friendship. The songs sound energetic while you are watching them but as usual they remain the most unwanted feature of the film, fitted in all the wrong places deliberately, without any basic purpose. And they could have easily done with some lesser tracks in the film (apart from the famous original tracks used) to make it more short & sweet.Coming to its performances, Ali Zafar scores well in the role of the most sophisticated one amongst the three college friends. Siddharth & Divyendu Sharma perform their over the top, loud roles in a fine way with Divyendu making the most out of his poetic verses. The debutant (in Hindi films),Taapsee Pannu is the main attraction of the film as stated before, looking great in her short dresses.Rishi Kapoor once again surprises you with all his body tattoos and a new trendy look reminding his good old image of a romantic lover, getting a brilliant support from Lillete Dubey playing his newly found love interest. On the other hand both Anupam Kher and Bharti Achrekar couldn't rise above the routine with Ayaz Khan having nothing to do in the script till the end.In all, the new CHASHME BADDOOR works on the same spirit of its three decades old original and provides you an enjoyable time in the theater as promised. Its one of the better (if not great) works of director David Dhawan wherein he rediscovers himself working with the youngsters. And thankfully the film is not a patch on its basic source material like many of the recent remakes we have seen in this year.Having said that, I do have a different viewpoint on this latest Bollywood craze of making remakes. And I have stated this earlier too in my reviews that a remake is unarguably a smart way to avoid all that hard-work and brainstorming required to work upon a new script. It obviously saves the time, energy and resources too if one can get an already hit script to start with as a fresh project. But if only remakes have to made as a safe proposal, then why not make the remakes of other regional language films appreciated in our own country (as Bollywood has been doing more often) or go in for the foreign languages films which cannot be seen or opted for by a common man, only exposed to watching Hindi Films as his fixed routine.In other words, making a Hindi remake of an old Hindi Classic only, really looks like as if we are left with nothing more to serve to our thoughtful viewers other than giving them the same old dishes in a new plate. Ending on that questionable note, though CHASHME BADDOOR proves to be a largely fine entertainer as a remake, yet it cannot have all those mesmerizing key features of its original like the road side Paan Wala, the black motor-cycle referred to as Kaali Ghorhi, the Mandi House theater shows, Talkatora Garden, Tooty Fruity and many more due to the time period constraint. Still taking it positively, I hope Bollywood gets over with this avoidable trend soon (of making versions of their own Hindi masterpieces) and gives us some worth watching original works to cherish for long.

For starters, it's enjoyable if you don't make much sense of it.Ali Zafar: He fits nicely into the goody two shoes role.Divyendu and Siddhart: These guys are awesome. I mean AWESOME. Acted like pretentious and cheap creeps with ulterior and undignified motives behind everything. :pThe rest of the cast were well known veterans who did there jobs well. It might not be the best movie or the best remake but it's rather enjoyable.Tapsee Pannu: Her dialogs were really bad. I mean "Dum hain Boss", really? Even if you wish too make it humorous, which it is not, you should have got a better line for her. Acting wise, she was decent. Not great. PS: Divyendu. Respect ++ \\Pyaar Ka Panchnama

watched CHASHME BADDOOR ...cause I haven't seen the older one of which it's a remake of, so I am gonna judge it as another film of 2013.... David Dhawan this guy has some sh!t load of money which he doesn't know how to spend so he made a movie(this)... he spent money on everything(to buy 2nd hand stuff n songs) except the plot & screenplay (these need creativity more than money) n r the sole of a movie...n this soul sucks also most(not all) of the cast members r dumb in acting(i should say overacting) n their overdone effort to be witty really annoys ...lets be straight... its a complete waste of time DO NOT WATCH THIS SH!T

Don't judge a film by its poster, a bright spark on the screen reminds the audience rather helpfully. We know, buddy. But what if the book turns out to be worse than the cover? Actually, it isn't quite that simple out here either way: neither the poster nor the film is worth wasting any considered judgment on.David Dhawan's Chashme Baddoor is a raggedy bag of gags as flimsy as the boxers that the three buddies strut around in – they are full of colour all right but add little value to the canvas. Intended to be a breezy comic romp, the film is woefully short of wind in its sails despite all the bluff and bluster that it whips up. The cult classic of 1981 that is still vividly etched in our collective memories receives the OTT Double D (over the top David Dhawan) treatment but isn't even half the fun that Sai Paranjpye's witty and infectiously mirthful Chashme Buddoor was.Note the difference in spelling. Dhawan spells Baddoor with an 'a' – it adds up to too 'bad' and too far gone to be genuinely enjoyable. Paranjpye had settled for a 'u' in her Buddoor – her film had instant 'universal' appeal. This ill-advised remake is less adult than asinine. Watch Chashme Baddoor by all means if you nurture no reverence for Hindi cinema's past, for whatever it is worth. Watch it for all the frenzied dancing, prancing and romancing that Dhawan unleashes to the accompaniment of Hindi film hits of the none- too-distant past, in addition to a slew of new musical numbers.For this critic, Chashme Baddoor does evoke a degree of nostalgia but not quite in the way one would expect. You hear SP Balasubramanyam's robust voice in a snatch of Dekha hai pehli baar and how you long for a return to the era of the great male singers who sounded male and not like some of the nasal, effeminate, monotonous wonders that rule the roost today!Ali Zafar, the film's lead actor who gets to sing a solitary peppy love ditty, comes pretty close to the tonal timbre of those great voices that once defined Hindi movie music. Unfortunately, amid the high-pitched din that this Chashme Baddoor delivers, these little delights are but stray straws in a wild gust. So, if you can't stand the unseemly sight of a pristine idea being mauled, battered and pulverized out of shape and beyond recognition, do yourself a favour and stay away from this laboured, loud and lowbrow rehash of a truly magnificent comedy.As a matter of fact, Chashme Baddoor doesn't deserve to be designated as a remake: it demolishes much more than it actually makes. Dhawan and his scriptwriter leave the core of the original storyline intact but tamper cavalierly with its essence. The result is anything but salutary. They yank the bum chums away from their culture-specific Delhi location and transport them to an indeterminate Goan setting. In the bargain, all prospects of carving a genuinely funny caper flick out of the material are driven to the ground and many feet under. It is one thing to seek to update a comic love story from a bygone era for present times. It's quite another to trifle with its spirit. Chashme Baddoor goes completely go off the rails in trying to eke out a laugh-a-minute ride by resorting to methods that one thought had gone out of currency with Govinda. Yes, there is something unconscionably twisted and misplaced about this Chashme Baddoor. The antics of the motor-mouth male trio at the centre of the rigmarole – Sid (Ali Zafar), Jai (Siddharth) and Omi (Divyendu Sharma) – border on the imbecile, and the one-liners that they direct at each other and at the world at large are delivered at decibel levels so high that that it could rattle even those that are hard of hearing.Sid is an introverted goody two-shoes who believes in playing safe, but his two pals – one a wannabe poet who spouts irritatingly silly rhymes, the other a movie-crazy city slacker in love with the idea of who he is – are incorrigible skirt-chasers who repeatedly land in trouble.The girl that they are out to woo, Seema (Taapsee Pannu), is no coy touch-me-not. On the run from an armyman dad (Anupam Kher) who wants her to marry a soldier, she seeks refuge in the Goa home of her civilian uncle (Anupam Kher again) and her spirited grandmother (Bharti Achrekar).The mayhem that ensues as a result of a series of mistaken identities and misadventures has a deleterious effect on Chashme Baddoor – it goes from bad to worse. Everyone, including a cafe owner called Joseph Furtado (Rishi Kapoor) and the object of his late-blooming desire, ageing spinster Josephine (Lilette Dubey), jumps into the pool of uncertainty.Subtlety certainly isn't the name of the game here. Wit is replaced by runaway buffoonery. As the humour assumes crude, if not lewd, overtones, the actors take the cue and ham away to glory. But to their credit, they shriek, holler, run around in circles and make a spectacle of themselves and yet manage to stay on their feet for the most part. Wish one could say the same about the film as a whole.If the original was a soothing and timeless melody, this is a raucous and forgettable item number. Give it a shot if you must, but don't expect the world from it.