Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro

Two simple photographers, trying to eke out an honest living, caught in a web of scandal and deceit.

Fantastic direction, outstanding plot, brilliant script, phenomenal casting and amazing acting. This movie has you laughing till the last scene, which is when the laughter is wrenched from your throat!

The movie has great attention to detail. For example, the scene when monkey is being photographed, look into the mirror in his hand. You actually see Tarneja in a checked jacket and gun in hand. Which leads to the single biggest flaw: no gunshot heard?

But that may be forgiven. The comedy is unending!!! For example, the Dhritrashtra, still blind, saying "This is too much! Yeh Akbar kahaan se aa gaya?"... Or Tarneja and Ahuja entering the Mahabharat in complete costumes, but still wearing their specs and sunglasses respectively! That, to my mind, is the single longest comic scene in Hindi cinema!

The laughs do not stop!!! It stays, to date, the best tragi-comedy ever!

A lot of comments about this movie have centered on the apparently slapstick comedy, ignoring its usage to lend a sense of the grotesque in what is a essentially a masterful farce, and beneath the surface, more of a tragedy.

This movie centers around the two young protagonists, full of ideals and the will to win against the powers of endemic and ubiquitous corruption, a corruption that is so manifestly present that the others do not seem to question its existence, but implicitly assume it and use it to serve their own ends. However, our heroes find the going quite tough.

Although partly inspired by Michelangelo Antonioni's "Blow-up", this movie is in a class by itself, with dark humor reminiscent of Kafka and Gogol. The star cast includes some of the finest actors to ever grace the screens of Bollywood (or for that matter, anywhere else). Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapoor and many others deliver stellar performances in this tragi-comedy which is one of finest pearls produced by the New Wave movement in Indian cinema.

Regretabbly, comprehension of the movie requires intimate knowledge of the background, something which you would only have if you have lived in India, where corruption is as natural as breathing, and if you are familiar with the turbulent times when New Wave Cinema was taking off, a time of discontent and idealism among youth, a time of unemployment and the times of the angry young man (as typified by Amitabh Bachchan in many commercial films from this era).

However one can still enjoy it for it is a comedy worth watching. Hopefully, the viewer will see the tragedy beneath the humor.

I rate this movie among the finest movies of all time, and in the class of farces, it stands alongside Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove".

Quite apart from its social satire, unimaginably ahead of its time for the dour early '80's Delhi, JBDY managed to bring together a slew of talent, Shah(s), Baswani, Kapoor, and of course the inimitable Puri 'Ahuja'. Folks over at NFDC still take the movie apart frame by frame, deconstructing its topical references and attempt to interpolate a social conscience to it. More than its concluding 'Draupadi vastraharan' scene, symbolic of the wretched disrobing of the Indian polity however, the film managed to make me cry out loud with laughter even as an impressionable twelve year old, merely for its slapstick content. This is a movie which gets better with every viewing, and reveals slick, symbolic and subversive undertones worthy of Kundan Shah's maverick vision.

I remember when this movie came out it faired poorly at the box office and was off the theatres within a week. But I think it generated an underground sort of movement amongst youth who wanted to watch a different kind of cinema and soon it had a cult of its own. You ask any Indian cine fan between 30s and 40s his/her top 10 favorite movies and I think this movie will figure in the list somewhere.

The plot is simple; two struggling photographers accidentally get involved in the filth that Indian 'system' is and which includes everybody from the police to media to politicians to builders etc. etc. etc. Once involved they try to expose everyone involved but the question is 'will they survive?'

Performance wise, everyone from Naseer to Ravi Baswani to Pankaj Kapoor to Satish Shah to Satish Kaushik to Om Puri have given brilliant performances, probably amongst their best. It's almost like magic that you know that it happened but you never know how. The film is bustling with synergy of all these performers (actors, writers, director and the whole crew) who are just happy to work with each other and in such a creative environment and are out to make a difference. And difference they made. It is and will remain a cult classic with people from our generation.

Let me first clarify that I have been a fan of this movie for a long time. When I say its overrated, I mean to say that its still a very good movie, much much ahead of its times, but its not as great as its made out to be.

I will just outline some of the negatives that may or may not have been pointed out by prior reviewers. Positives are many obviously. The biggest positive is the fact that a film of this nature was conceived, that too back in 1983, with a budget of barely around 800k rupees. The comic sequences are nice, the satire is accurate. I especially loved the portrayal of early 80s Bombay, India. The people and the places of that era.

Coming to the negatives, the whole plot is so superficial, so shallow, so vain. may be that type of a premise was necessary here, to combine the comic and tragic aspects of the movie. But it makes all the characters of the movie seem incredible, in the bad sense. Too inconsistent. They keep switching from being normal, to being idiotic, to being intelligent, randomly. Perfect example of it is the scene between Naseeruddin and Bhakti Barve in her office. It could have been an awesome scene, but it doesn't reach that potential. And the same is true for so many other scenes. May be the film was made in a hurry.

Another thing is, when you watch the movie now, the humor doesn't work much. Its like a movie playing on slow-mo. Even the actor's reactions and dialogue deliveries seem to be delayed, everything seems too slow. There are a number of Priyadarshan movies, that are way funnier than this one. Of course its unfair to compare movies like that. The point is, its just not as hilarious as I first found it to be.

There are other issues too. The whole Murder-Deadbody segment is so flawed logically. Why would Tanreja murder someone in a park, that too in broad daylight? and why would he choose to return there in the middle of the night to pick up the dead body. And then, why would anyone dump the body under a bridge to be inaugurated to the public the next day.

The satire is monotonous. We Indians are all already aware of corruption. the film doesn't really say anything new. and the worst thing is, there isn't really any greater message to the film. I mean if its a satirical movie, it should have something to say. shouldn't it? This one just announces that the COMMON man is doomed in corrupt India.

I still do endorse this movie. My favorite scene is the one under the bridge, where the two innocent citizens, Naseer and Ravi get harassed by the constable. Unfortunately, its 2014 and the same is still happening in India. I guess thats the ultimate message of this movie. To laugh at it, or to cry over that, is left to the viewers choice.