Kaagaz Ke Fools Review {1/5} & Review Rating
There have been many instances in Bollywood, when the filmmakers have begged, borrowed or simply stolen their film's titles from yesteryear's hit tracks or have simply (unabashedly) retained the same film name with a 'brand new' cast. The title of this week's release, which goes by the name of KAAGAZ KE FOOLS, has been very clearly 'inspired' by the yesteryear cult film 'KAAGAZ KE PHOOL'. Will this week's release match upto the 'name-esis' of the original… let's analyze.
The film starts off with a search operation by Dev (Saurabh Shukla) and Nikki (Mugdha Godse). This brother-sister duo are in search of Nikki's 'non-ambitious but honest' husband Purushottam Tripathi (Vinay Pathak), who leaves the house after a tiff with his nagging (but loveable) wife Nikki. While on one hand, Nikki's relatives help to reconcile her relationship with Purushottam, on the other hand, the couple's common friend lays his bets on them getting divorced. Caught in a whirlpool of relatives, friends and emotional turmoil, Purushottam lands up in a gambling den, where he drinks heavily and wins not just the money but also the company of a 'working woman' prostitute Rubina (Raima Sen). Despite all her attempts to seduce him, the 'patni-vratha' Purushottam refuses to give in to her advances. Seeing a 'truthful human' in her, he starts staying with her, but without any intimacy between them. On a professional front too, his life is in turmoil as his book 'Ek Thehri Si Zindagi' fails to find any publisher, which further adds to his frustration. One day, when Purushottam is totally out of control emotionally, he again lands up at the same gambling den. Lady Luck favors him to the core and he makes a killing, so much so that he even defeats the owner of the gambling den 'in his own game'. He, then, hands over all the winnings to Rubina asking her to fund her brother's education. The next day, a series of incidents happen in quick succession that puts everyone including Purushottam in a tizzy. While on one hand, Purushottam gets kidnapped in broad daylight, on the other hand, someone renames his book from 'Ek Thehri Si Zindagi' to 'Ek Tharki Si Zindagi', which lands up being a Bestseller' in no time of its publishing. Who are the people responsible for Purushottam's kidnapping and what are their motives, who is responsible for the renaming of the book, do Purushottam and his wife ever make peace with each other or do they land up divorcing each other is what forms the rest of the story.
Right from the word go, the film lacks any substance which could be reason enough to hold the attention and the interest of the viewers. As the film progresses, the audiences' interest starts deteriorating. And the only person who is to be blamed for this is none other than the film's director Anil Kumar Chaudhary, who lacks directorial skills. His amateurish direction is visible from the fact that, almost in every scene, there are onlookers who are happily watching the film's shoot! All that one can tell this 'aspiring director' is to sharpen his Ps and Qs of filmmaking if he wants to retain himself in Bollywood.
As far as the film's performances are concerned, the two words that sum up all the characters are 'heavily miscast'. It's really sad to see Mugdha Godse making a mockery of herself in the role of a 'nagging but lovable' Punjabi wife. The more she tries to speak the Punjabi dialect, the more her character suffers at the dialogue delivery. Raima Sen, on the other hand, tries her level best to look and behave like a mistress, but fails to impress. Can someone explain the reason as to why Saurabh Shukla's character was sporting a fake bushy moustache? There are many places wherein even he starts hamming in the film. The only saving grace of the film is indeed Vinay Pathak with his holier-than-thou character. The fact that performing such 'Mr. Clean' roles is a cakewalk for him, he brings nothing new on the table, except for the fact that his (unwanted) wig starts screaming for all the (unwanted) attention in the film. The rest of the characters of the film are either irritating or purely thrusted in the film with a sole purpose of completing a typical happy-go-lucky type of Punjabi film!
While the film's cinematography (Aniket Khandagale) is non mentionable, the film's music (Sangeeta Pant) is anything but memorable. The background score (Surender Sodi) brings some respite to the film and its progress, the film's editing (Kshitija Khandagale) is pretty much average. The film's sound (Suresh Sharma) suffers heavily, which results in the film's characters' dialogues going out of place in many frames.
On the whole, KAAGAZ KE FOOLS can be skipped without any regret.