Chor Machaaye Shor (2002)
Cast: Bobby Deol, Shilpa Shetty, Bipasha Basu, Om Puri, Paresh Rawal
Director: David Dhawan
Synopsis: pitiful farce inspired by Blue Steak - another stinker from David Dhawan
Reviewed by: Faiz Khan

 

If David Dhawan's decline has not already become painfully obvious over the past year or two, then Chor Machaaye Shor should provide more than enough evidence for anyone wishing to write his cinematic epitaph.

I would be the first to admit that I have enjoyed several of his earlier comedies, particularly those teaming him with Govinda, whose impeccable comic timing invariably elevated even the flimsiest material. Sadly, their last collaboration, Kyo Kii... Main Jhuth Nahin Bolta, proved a major disappointment and, ever since, Dhawan has churned out one uninspired piece of rubbish after another.

Chor Machaaye Shor merely joins that ever-growing list.

Shyam (Bobby Deol) steals a diamond worth thirty crores and cleverly hides it inside a derelict building after double-crossing his partners in crime. Quite happily serving a two-year prison sentence, he is horrified upon his release to discover that the abandoned building has since been converted into a police station.

So how does one retrieve a fortune hidden inside a police station?

Enter his faithful friend (Shekhar Suman), who disguises Shyam as a police officer and somehow succeeds in planting him inside the station itself.

Remarkably, everybody accepts him as one of their own.

Well...

...everybody except the permanently suspicious Om Puri.

Shyam soon finds himself stumbling through life as the station's newest—and most incompetent—policeman. Also stationed there is the glamorous Ranjana (Bipasha Basu), thereby providing the mandatory excuse for several elaborately choreographed song-and-dance routines.

Unfortunately, complications arise when doubts begin to surface regarding Shyam's true identity. His ingenious solution is to invent an identical twin brother called Ram.

What follows is intended to be a riotous comedy of mistaken identities.

Sadly...

...it isn't.

Following a path remarkably similar to Gol Maal, the film demonstrates just how spectacularly wrong a madcap comedy can go. The first half is laboured, occasionally provoking the odd reluctant smile but never anything approaching genuine laughter. By the second half, matters simply drag on...

...and on...

...and on.

Apparently inspired by Blue Streak—a film I have fortunately never seen—this feels like little more than C-grade entertainment aimed squarely at the mass audience. I suspect it may well find favour in smaller centres, but that hardly excuses the lack of imagination on display.

Bobby Deol shows little aptitude for slapstick comedy and leaves virtually no impression whatsoever.

One also has to wonder how Shilpa Shetty has managed to survive so long in the industry. She has precious little going for her here. She looks uncomfortable, cannot act and seems to have been cast purely as a glamour girl—without providing much glamour.

And how one wishes she would simply refrain from opening her mouth.

Bipasha Basu is criminally wasted in a thoroughly thankless role. If this was intended to mark her entry into mainstream commercial cinema, it was a singularly poor choice.

Shekhar Suman injects a little life into proceedings, although he occasionally veers towards excess.

Ultimately, it is left to Paresh Rawal and Om Puri to salvage the unsalvageable and, to their credit, they provide the film with its few genuinely amusing moments.

The music is dreadful, while the picturisation of the songs is astonishingly uninspired, resembling little more than an extended gymnastic display.

To make matters worse, there seems to be an endless procession of songs awkwardly pasted into the narrative for no apparent reason.

If you are looking for a completely senseless and brainless experience, I would recommend a lobotomy.

If that proves inconvenient...

...then you could always watch Chor Machaaye Shor instead.