Review: Bumboo

Film: Bumboo
Director: Jagdish Rajpurohit
Cast: Kavin Dave, Sharat Saxena, Sumit Kaul, Mandy Takhar, Sanjay  Mishra
Rating: *

Yes, there is a movie called Bumboo and it released this week. You may not have known about this because the makers have largely depended on word-of-mouth to promote it.

Bumboo, which carries a simple message of ‘life can screw you anytime, anywhere’, opens with caricatures and an extremely catchy song by Mika. Don’t let this fool you.

The story unfolds in the form of three different plots.

Manu Gupta (Sudhir Pandey) is a scamster who is being taken to Goa from Mumbai for a trial. The journey is extremely painful for the policemen assisting him due to his bizarre behaviour — Plot 1.

Famous contract killer Mangal Singh (Sharat Saxena) is hired to kill Manu. For this, Mangal books a room in a hotel opposite the court — Plot 2.

Suresh Sudhakar (Kavin Dave), popularly known as SuSu, is an ill-fated divorcee and a press photographer. His life revolves around his ex-wife Pinky (Mandy Takhar) who lives with her current boyfriend Dr D'Souza, a psychiatrist in Goa. Suresh is handed the assignment of covering the Manu Gupta trial — Plot 3.

Mangal and SuSu occupy adjacent rooms in the hotel where Vincent (Sanjay Mishra) is a waiter. SuSu’s attempt to commit suicide by trying to hang himself in the hotel room brings the three together.

SuSu, a self-imposed friend of Mangal, forces the latter to pull him out of depression, thus making it a tough day for Mangal.

The three plots meet in the end with a typical Priyandarshan-style confusion where every character is lost running around in a crowd. This point in the film is guaranteed to get on to your last nerve.

The film does boast of a promising cast, which nonetheless fails to generate any interest.

Kavin Dave, though promising, is definitely not ready to carry a film on his shoulders. He tries very hard to bring a laugh with his otherwise endearing character, but fails dramatically. Sharat Saxena makes a disappointing effort to add humour to his acting, but comedy is definitely not his strong suit. Sudhir Pandey does justice to his character which is otherwise an irritation in the film as the director largely depends on the ‘potty’ jokes of Delhi Belly. These are highly disturbing and fail bring out a chuckle.

Except the title track, there is nothing attractive about the music. The dialogues are exceptionally poor with an immature writing. The idea of having a sutradhar to narrate the film is old and uncalled for.

Editing is another drawback that adds to the irritation. The film travels from Mumbai to Goa, but there seems to be no point here. Three parallel plots, loud acting and immature shots combine to do injustice to an otherwise honest effort which you can watch if you must.

In the end, the narrator, Sanjay Mishra, says if you like the film, spread the word, but if you don’t, still do because “ek bumboo lagaane ka haq aapko bhi hai.” The latter suits this situation more.