Maybe the makers knew how the remake would shape up. Why else would they change the spelling from Buddoor to Baddoor ? As feared, David Dhawan puts the Bad in Baddoor, severely let down by his writers. The jokes are just bad. Tragic since even cheap and corny ones would’ve delivered the remake and made it watchable given the riot of a premise that lends itself organically to David Dhawan’s kind of cinema.
Anyone familiar with Dhawan’s work would know he specialises in male bonding and comes up trumps when the plot involves the leads in a game of one-upmanship and pulling down each other — as we have seen in Mujhse Shaadi Karogi, Deewana Mastana or Jodi No. 1 .
There’s a certain innocence and charm about Dhawan’s old-fashioned disregard for realism or detail or logic which certainly could have seen this film through, had it just had better writing.
But what Dhawan got was a bunch of writers whose idea of a good line is: “Love is not about age. It is about courage. Bondage. Cleavage. And marriage.”
Can you blame Siddharth for not making it work?
Dhawan also seems to be strangely nervous here about going larger than life all the way and the lack of restraint from the Mayor of Loudville is a dampener. No real kidnappers here! Err? Because that would be unrealistic?
The popular Chamko scene plays out in a very different context, almost forced into the narrative, when you least expect it.
The original had no pretensions of being realistic, but it took us from the realm of the real with its slice-of-life moments of friendship and romance all the way to the unreal, zany world of films. If at one point, Farooque Shaikh and Deepti Naval wondered how conveniently lovers in films sang in rhyme before trying out a duet themselves, by the end of the film, they are fighting kidnappers in a comedy of errors. Their normal realistic life has turned all filmi!
David Dhawan is not interested in this journey of the simple love story that goes from real to unreal because he likes to keep it flatly silly. Not that the film doesn’t make you laugh at all. In fact, as offended as you might be with what David Dhawan has turned the material into, you will break into a laugh or two. And that’s only because the cast works really hard.
But there’s absolutely no reason for you to catch this when the restored original classic is out in the theatres. Do yourself a favour and book your tickets for the original film. Catch this one on TV if you must.
You can thank me later.
Genre: Comedy
Director: David Dhawan
Cast: Ali Zafar, Siddharth, Divyendu Sharma, Tapsee Pannu, Rishi Kapoor, Lillette Dubey, Anupam Kher
Storyline: Boy loves girl. Boy’s best friends throw a spanner in the works.
Bottomline: Not a patch on the classic. Strictly for David Dhawan fans.
