Welcome Back Is Your Worst Nightmare
Every once in a while comes a cinematic delight so thought-provoking, it inspires bouts of self-destruction
Anees Bazmee is perhaps the Michael Bay of India. Without the talent. In which case, he's just a man with resources who believes he's making films when he's closer to making video tutorials on how to break laws in UAE and not get stoned to death in front of the town hall.
Absolutely nothing justifies the brain-numbing trauma that is Welcome Back. It is unlike any bad film you've seen so far, which probably is its only plus point.
Anil Kapoor and Nana Patekar return as Majnu and Uday bhai and this time around, they've given up a life of crime to pursue other worldly pleasures they were earlier deprived of - marriage. The duo fall for the same woman and the confusion, Bazmee has alleged, is supposed to inspire chuckles. While chuckles remain something that you were once capable of doing, what the film inspires you to do is violently attack your neighbour, and that is a federal offence. Just like Bazmee with a camera should be from now on. Because Welcome Back is so terrible that it makes the Akshay Kumar-Katrina Kaif starrer Welcome look like a Chaplin classic.
While Nana and Anil desperately try to woo Dimple Kapadia's (wasted) daughter (one Ankita Shrivastava who looks and acts as if she'll break down any minute and confess to ghastly crime), Shruti Haasan erupts practically out of nowhere and starts an affair with John Abraham. He's Ajju bhai which is okay. But then he's introduced with a song that goes: "Maan Babli Hui, Baap Bunty Hua...Band Kamre Me Twenty-Twenty Hua." This is far from okay.
If you still want to watch a film that has a song like this, you need to apologise for being a real person. Or for somehow ensuring that John is still considered an actor and is getting work. He flexes his abnormally large biceps and is seen frowning eyebrows with equal intensity. And still falls short by almost all expressions. Sir, this isn't a commercial to sell suitcases. Which reminds me that the suitcase was more expressive than Old John.
Towards the second half, Naseeruddin Shah is seen as a blind don with a bratty son (Shiney Ahuja), who clearly was made for this role.
Looking like someone who's facing the camera after a while (barring news cameras), the actor looks uptight and has some horrible lines (Not that the rest of the cast is any better. Still). But that's the kind of film Welcome Back is. A tragedy of errors where women are referred to as 'pieces' and their only purpose is to get married. One other relatively minor glitch in the film is that all of them look like their clothes were stitched from the cocktail of leftover cloth from Bazmee's previous film. Tacky and substandard, they look more like side-dancers in a low-budget music video that only aired when the final cut had to be played for the director.
Among the better things about the film: Nana and Anil reveal some genuine chemistry and a scene in a graveyard is well-crafted and funny. Another scene where the director mocks Aamir Khan's PK is hilarious and a couple of one-liners are aptly timed. For the most part, you're laughing at Paresh Rawal trying to make everyone else laugh or just to yourself for the foolish choices you've made in life.
In either case, you'll laugh. That probably says something about this film and also about you. Watch and experience for yourself because such cinematic delights shouldn't be limited to the few fortunate ones.
