The National The Shaukeens Review: Trash

The Shaukeens Review: Trash

Nov 08, 2014 Roy Daniel Dsilva Bollywood Movie Reviews, Movie Reviews 0

Some people consider the nineties to be the nadir of Bollywood, with an entire film industry going down the action film route. It was only in the late nineties that Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge salvaged the art of storytelling and made watching Bollywood movies help once more. In the same vein, the seventies and the eighties came with some very entertaining movies. These two decades were the ones that came up with some of the most interesting, entertaining movies. Film makers like Basu Chatterjee brought about a positive change in cinema. The movies have achieved such a cult status today, that within a span of a few years, The Shaukeens is the third movie from the Chaterjee camp that is being remade. Here is the complete review of the Akshay Kumar Lisa Haydon starer, The Shaukeens.

Plot and Screenplay Review

If you ever complained that movie remakes are a scene to scene copy of their previous movies, you are in for a stale surprise when it comes to The Shaukeens. The titular characters, played by Anupam Kher, Annu Kapoor and Piyush Mishra, are over-the-hill sleaze balls with a heart that are looking to scratch their seventy-year-old itch. And that is the script takes a hard right from the original script of the original Shaukeen.

The three elderly friends decide to go on a holiday to Mauritius -after they have to drop Bangkok like a hot potato – and do something unique. They rent the house of a young girl Suhani (Lisa Haydon), one who has hitched up for a trip with her boyfriend. Unfortunately, or fortunately for the trio, Suhani breaks up with her boyfriend before the trip, and the quartet have to spend their time together.

While the three old men try to win the girl’s favour, Suhani herself is a complicated character, and as far as she is concerned the three old men are simply some addition to her chaotic life. The Shaukeens weaves an interesting story till here, but it all goes downhill after this.

The movie takes a sharp turn, and in comes a storyline of a crore-club actor (Akshay Kumar), of whose Suhani is a great fan, and she says that anyone who has her introduced to will ‘get whatever he wants’. Of course, three men of the older generation use up all their imagination, and make it their life’s mission to have her meet Akshay Kumar.

Of course, this creates the simplest, slapstick humour sequences, and what started out as something poignant turns out to be an overdose of crude and ‘me too’ humour. And it is this me too humour that becomes the bane of the movie. It even has a soundtrack that is reminiscent of the ‘Oh So Lonely’ track that became famous for around a week.

There were several things that made Shaukeen the cult movie that it is today. The crackling chemistry between the main cast helped, and what also helped was the moral ambiguity portrayed in the movie. The entire movie hinged on the simple question about whether a group of old fuddy duddy would do anything that would be considered rude, forget non-consensual. The new Shaukeen needs none of that, as all the layers of a Basu Chatterjee films are rolled over with new chutzpah.

Performances Review

Anupam Kher, Annu Kapoor and Piyush Mishra are three genres of acting on their own, and that one wonders how they got trapped in such a movie. Granted, Kher has some commercial outings now and then, but Mishra and Kapoor are rarely seen, and even if, they have a satisfying outing.

The only person who seems to be having fun is Akshay Kumar. It remains to be seen why Kumar and his coterie decided to put such a story angle in such a movie. While some actors are making home movies for their children, others are making movies that seem to exist just to poke fun at themselves. Strange.

Lisa Haydon tries to emote and bring to the fore the issues that plague the young generation, but between the mildly entertaining camaraderie that the veterans portray, Akshay’s screen presence and Haydon’s its bits wardrobe, it is lost.

Music Review

The song, thankfully are not an erasure. The trance song is quite hummable, and will become a disco favorite, and so will the Alcoholic song. Both these songs are waiting to become remixes and blaze the dance floor.

Here is the clip of the song Meherbani:

Final Thoughts

Many people say that movies, even remakes, should not be compared to the originals. Even if that is the case, The Shaukeens is a pretty bad watch even if one considers it to be a standalone film. There is no chemistry between the lead pair, the crude humor and the tired screenplay is enough to put off anyone – even the strongest of Akshay Kumar fans.