Harish Shankar should take a moment to reflect on his choices and return with something sensible that does justice to his talent as a writer.
Director Harish Shankar's 'Mr Bachchan' is an action thriller. (X)
It’s refreshing when a director revisits an acclaimed film with a fresh perspective, offering something drastically different, to those who loved the original. At the same time, it’s crucial to understand the essence of the original material and why it’s being remade, even if you choose not to stay entirely faithful to it. Mr Bachchan neither works as a standalone film nor as a remake of Raid (2018).
The film takes off in the 90s when an income tax officer—Anand aka Mr Bachchan—adopts novel strategies to conduct raids on the households of corrupt bureaucrats. He’s suspended from work when his ‘brutal’ tactics go out of hand. He soon falls in love with a neighbour Jikki and there’s trouble in the paradise when he’s called in for duty to lead a high-profile raid.
Mr Bachchan, more than the story of an eventful raid in an IT officer’s life, desires to be a love letter to the 80s and the 90s— referencing everyone from a Yandamoori Veerendranath to Amitabh Bachchan to Ilaiyaraaja, Kishore Kumar, Chiranjeevi, Kumar Sanu et al. It doffs its hat to the era of landline romances and cassette recording shops and is overcrowded with musical, and cinematic influences.
The writer in Harish Shankar is in reasonably good form in the first hour when Mr Bachchan has nothing to do with Raid.
The Ravi Teja starrer opens with a hilarious sequence where the protagonist arrives as a potential bridegroom at a politician’s house he raids and tricks them into revealing their unaccounted money and jewellery. Every second sequence after that attempts to justify the film’s title.
Sholay (1975) inspires the hero’s father so much that he renames himself Thakur, addresses his wife as Basanti, nicknames his son Mr Bachchan and his house is called Ramgarh (after the village Sholay is set in). When the father and son meet after many years, the former tests his loyalty to Amitabh Bachchan, making him parrot iconic dialogues from Deewar (1975), Shahenshah (1988) and Agneepath (1990), to name a few.
Sholay’s Mehbooba plays in the background as Jikki (named after the playback singer) steps into Bachchan’s household. He uses Side B of a cassette in a cassette shop to profess his love for her. Satya is the third wheel in their relationship—serving as a punching bag—whenever Bachchan wants to woo Jikki. The milieu largely reminds you of the director’s Gaddalakonda Ganesh (2019).
As you would (not) expect from a Harish Shankar-Ravi Teja film, there’s no space for niceties or sensitivity in the romance—there’s a male gaze written all over it. The girl, constantly donning half-saris, has no identity but to remain the man’s love interest. Ravi Teja plays a 30s-something youngster who still needs to chase women and groove to duets in foreign locales to sustain his ‘brand’ of heroism.
Despite little or no plot progression, Mr Bachchan restlessly keeps moving on from one scene to the other (unsurprisingly, KGF 2’s editor Ujwal Kulkarni has worked on the film). There’s a decent conflict between Bachchan and the politician Muthyam Jaggiah leading to the intermission. Just when Mr Bachchan could’ve safely emulated Raid, the film is in freefall mode.
Mr Bachchan is confused about its trajectory in the latter hour—where Harish Shankar tries to imprint his sensibilities onto the script and cater to Ravi Teja’s image, alternating between unnecessary fights, parodies and dream sequences, diluting the core premise. There’s cacophony all around with too many characters and pointless subplots and the ‘raid’ suddenly takes a backseat.
There are too many cinematic liberties bordering on the absurd. In the middle of a raid, the politician gets convenient access to his landline phone to arrange for goons to threaten Bachchan’s family and leave the household to meet the PM (a lookalike of Rajiv Gandhi). The heroine asks her friend to smoke a cigarette just to recollect her fond memories with Bachchan.
An aspirant actor at Jaggaiah’s house is dressed up as Hiranyakashipu, smashing pillars and walls that conceal his black money. A grandma, on her death bed, recollects her first love, who supposedly looks like Akkineni Nageswara Rao. A mistress of Jaggaiah’s family member has vulgar conversations with IT officials in the middle of the night. There’s madness without any method to it.
When the raid (in a remake of Raid) is the least of the director’s priorities, why bother retelling the story in the first place? Look at the irony of the film’s second half, where the only high point is a sparkling cameo by Siddu Jonnalagadda (who christens himself ‘Youth Yuvaraj’). Harish Shankar makes the same mistake as he did with Jigarthanda’s (2014) remake, Gaddalakonda Ganesh.
None of Gaddalakonda Ganesh’s characters, apart from the lead, gets a scope to shine and it’s the same scenario with Mr Bachchan. To quote another example—while Dabanng was a film where Harish’s idea to reimagine a script as per the strengths of its star was smart enough, Raid is a misfit to be a star vehicle. Did Harish Shankar get carried away with his sensibilities? Probably, yes.
If there are two names likely to benefit the most from Mr Bachchan—it’s the female lead Bhagyashri Borse and the composer Mickey J Meyer. Bhagyashri has the right elegance, looks and skill set to be a bankable commercial film actress. Mickey makes the most of the opportunity to prove his worth in a typical masala potboiler—“Reppal Dappul” and “Jikki” are a feast to the senses.
Jagapathi Babu often expresses his interest in doing different films, yet repeatedly ends up playing similar caricatured villains in one project after another. Tanikella Bharani, Gautami Tadimalla and Sachin Khedekar pass muster in brief roles while Satya is only mildly funny. Babu Mohan impresses in a blink-and-a-miss cameo, though Subhalekha Sudhakar and Annapurnamma are wasted, in inconsequential parts.
Mr Bachchan makes a mockery of Raid. Ravi Teja needs to reinvent himself and move beyond delivering the same performances with different hairstyles, blazers, and leading ladies half his age. Harish Shankar should take a moment to reflect on his choices and return with something sensible that does justice to his talent as a writer.
(Views expressed here are personal)
(Edited by S Subhakeerthana)
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