Golmaal 3

Settling in to watch Rohit Shetty's Golmaal 3 next to me yesterday, a friend and fellow critic discreetly confessed that he'd been to a screening of the same film a day ago. I must confess to being momentarily struck dumb, unable to conceive of someone having turned into enough of a franchise fan to repeat a viewing on successive days.

Yet my 'wow, Mr Shetty' line of surprised-impressed thought was almost instantly interrupted by the aforementioned pal, further revealing that he had fallen asleep and now needed to watch the film again to review it. Ow, Mr Shetty.

A little over two and a half hours later, I staggered out of the theatre looking for caffeine, in complete empathetic sync with the friend. The phone rang. Another critic who saw it yesterday had plain forgotten the plot, and so wanted a quick recap. I wish I was making some of this up, but no. The best thing that can be said about Golmaal 3 is that it both enters and exits your system rather comprehensively, leaving behind nothing either memorable or of consequence.

Shree Ashtavinayak Cine Vision Ltd.'s Golmaal 3 is a comedy of two families who ultimately unite into one. Pritam (Mithun Chakraborty) drives a school bus for a living and he has three adopted sons – Madhav (Arshad Warsi), Lucky (Tusshar Kapoor) and Laxman (Kunal Kemu). Geeta alias Guddi (Ratna Pathak Shah) has two children, both adopted – Gopal (Ajay Devgan) and Laxman (Shreyas Talpade). Daboo (Kareena Kapoor) is Gopal's girlfriend.

Gopal is a hot-headed guy whose temper spells danger. A raised finger at him is all that it takes to instigate him. Brother Laxman stammers while talking. Madhav, Lucky and Laxman keep borrowing money and losing it in suspect business ventures. Lucky has a speech problem – he can't speak. The path of Gopal and Laxman cross that of the three brothers in such circumstances that they become sworn enemies. Even as they can't see eye to eye, Pritam and Geeta meet by accident, and their love gets rekindled. Daboo realises that Pritam and Geeta, who were in love during their youth, still love one another. Since they are both unmarried, Daboo takes it upon herself to get them united in matrimony

Rohit Shetty is back with his Golmaal sequel once again. The first film was bad enough, the second one was even worse. Unfortunately, I couldn't get out of watching the third one which horrendous to say the least. Shetty is a terrible director and Ajay Devgan should steer clear of comedy. Johnny Lever makes an irritating comeback. Kareena Kapoor should have quit movies a long long time ago. It's a pity to see actors like Arshad Warsi, Ashwini Kalsekar and Shreyas Talpade wasted in this mess. The supposedly dramatic sequences are laughably bad. The only part of 'Golmaal 3' that I enjoyed was the Mithun Chakrabarty- Ratna Pathak track. The flashback sequence, which pays tribute to Mithun's famous 'Disco Dancer' was hilarious as it parodies the 70's romantic movies. Prem Chopra does a laugh-out-loud job here. Chakravarty and Pathak steal the show. Without a doubt this would have been a better film had it focused on their storyline and the subsequent reunion. Enough 'Golmaals' already. Why not make something decent for a change or something that's at least funny?

The third in the Golmaal series, this one is a farcical comedy without much of a story. Inspired by the television serial, Family No. 1, and the film, Khatta Meetha (old), it is more of an assemblage of funny sequences pieced together in a screenplay by writer Yunus Sajawal. As the story line is thin and not even new or fresh, the emphasis is more on creating laughter in individual scenes. While the attempt is successful upto a point, the monotony in the drama and the lack of an engrossing story hit the audience, especially after interval. No doubt, some scenes in the first half and a few after interval are absolutely hilarious and bring the house down with laughter, but then, there are also scenes which are designed to evoke laughter and fail. Writer Yunus Sajawal's biggest flaw is the addition of the emotional track in the story. That's because while the emotions fail to touch the heart and activate the tear ducts, the track robs the film of the comedy which has, actually, come to become the mainstay of the Golmaal films. So, while the emotional aspect fails to have the desired impact, it does rob the film of its USP – comedy!

After Golmaal and Golmaal Returns, i had high expectations of this. I'm pleased to say that it didn't disappoint me. First of all, the performances by Ajay Devgan, Kareena Kapoor, Tusshar Kapoor and Mithun Chakraborty are all good. Arshad Warsi, Shreyas Talpade and co. are also OK. Johnny Lever is hilarious as usual. Secondly, there is more comedy than the first two installments in a decent story. The only thing i'd say is that the music and action sequences could have been improved a little. People say that it is bad because it doesn't relate to the first two. My response to that is that you can't expect a Hindi comedy to continue with the same characters for two films as it will get boring. This way they can continue with Golmaal 4 and even 5. Overall a great comedy.

Verdict: you should definitely go and watch it. I give it 7/10.