Y Films, Yash Raj Films’ youth centric subsidiary was launched in 2011, with the movie Luv Ka The End . Two films and five web series later, Y Films aims for the big screen again with Bank Chor reuniting with Bumpy, the director whom they began their sojourn with. This time, seemingly following the age-old axiom of jitna dikhta hai utna bikta hai , the company has been on a manic marketing spree involving honest trailers, spoofs and the like.
Those who have watched the trailer of Bank Chor or caught any of its promos (there have been way too many) would not be surprised by the tongue in cheek tone of the soundtrack. The song, ‘ Hum Hain Bank Chor ’, written and composed by Kailash Kher, starts with a parody of the ‘ Bande Hai Hum Uske ’ verse from Dhoom 3 , and generously throws around the bank chor phrase pronouncing it the same way the expletive it resembles. Kher handles the lead vocals with Ambili Menon joining him briefly with a rap cameo (written by her). The rapping is more omnipresent in two other songs of the movie. ‘BC Rap Knockout: Mumbai vs Delhi’ has Naezy and Pardhaan trash talking each other over their respective cities, represented in the song’s video by the movie’s main man Riteish Deshmukh and boxing champion Vijender Singh. The rap is part smart and part silly, featuring some of the trademark phrases from the respective dialects. Shamir Tandon handles the music for this track.
The other rap song sees the Bollywood return of Baba Sehgal after a considerable gap (the man has been fairly active elsewhere though, South Indian films, independent music and most importantly, Twitter). And the man continues to be as wacky as ever; ‘ Bae, Baba Aur Bank Chor ’ is an absolutely random assortment of rhymes!
Rochak Kohli, a man who has regularly been part of multi-composer line-ups since his debut, and yet has managed to produce a good portfolio of songs – creates two of the better songs from this soundtrack too. ‘ Tashreef ’ is funnily written (by Adheesh Verma) and set to a pleasant, guitar-led arrangement. Kohli himself delivers the song in its original version and the ‘cups version’ where the percussion is replaced with plastic cups and claps while the rest of the arrangement remains largely the same. Nakash Aziz rules the folk-infused ‘ Jai Baba Bank Chor ’ with his exuberance. Though the lyrics are all over the place, it is the song’s energy that makes it tick. Given the soundtrack’s general light heartedness, the darkness of the instrumental theme song comes as a surprise. ‘ Mela: The Bank Chor Theme’ is composed by Shrikanth Sriram (British Asian multi-instrumentalist better known by his stage name Shri). While it’s a passable listen, the track does not have enough variation to justify its length of over five-and-a-half minutes.
Bank Chor has a random, mindless, fun soundtrack, which is pretty much how the movie promises to be as well.
