Bluffmaster - Review

I've been hooked onto the soundtrack of Rohan Sippy's Bluffmaster. A soundtrack often reveals a lot about the movie and this soundtrack consisted primarily of unique, groovy, 70's inspired retr0-mix numbers which led me to believe that this, perhaps would be a fast-paced, clever con movie, something along the lines of Ocean's Eleven, Out of Sight, Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown and maybe even a subtle nod to the cheesy 70's bollywood caper movies like The Great Gambler or Do aur do Paanch. The promos also seemed to suggest the same.

Soundtracks, like promos can often be deceiving too.

The movie begins with a clever job pulled off by con artiste Roy Kapoor (Abhishek Bachchan) and his crew. And he is indeed a con ARTISTE. He's an experienced, smooth operator with an uncanny ability of picking out his targets, cool under pressure and coming up with ingenious ways to hoodwink his victims. Or so the director would like us to believe cos Roy rarely exhibits any of these skills on screen. But for sake of convenience let's assume that it's all true and move forward. He's involved in a romantic relationship with Simmi (Priyanka Chopra) who loves him dearly and they plan to wed. But as fate would have it Roy is exposed for who he really is,on the day of his engagement no less, and Simmi, shocked and betrayed, promptly breaks off the engagement.
A dejected Roy meets with a young, aspiring, yet not fully polished con artiste, Dittu (Riteish Deshmukh) and after much persuasion agrees to take Dittu under his wings. Roy takes on the role of Master and Dittu the apt pupil as he attempts to teach the tricks of the trade, and other important lessons of life (which would include comparing life to an ocean and humans to fishes) and this allows the two to form a close bond. But just as things seem to go 'swimmingly' well, Roy discovers he has a malignant tumor in his brain and another three months to live. Also his repeated efforts to woo Simmi back seem to have limited success.
Given his condition, he decides to help Dittu pull off their biggest con job. The target - Chandrakanth Parikh aka chandru (Nana Patekar) a ruthless, sleazy business tycoon with powerful connections . Dittu is nursing a personal vendetta cos Chandru destroyed his dad's small business causing him to go insane.
In order to achieve this, Roy and Dittu take up the identities of diamond thieves on the run from the police seeking to "hide" in Chandru's hotel. All pretend ofcourse but Chandru believes they are the real Diamond thieves and is keen to acquire the diamonds from them. The bait is set. What follows is a predictable game of who's conning whom and anybody with half a brain could figure out how the movie is gonna end.

The film attempts to be witty and fast-paced and fails on both counts. The blame should be placed squarely on the director. Visual style is essential in any con movie. It's an absolute must in the absence of a strong plot. Quick, inventive camera movements needing to convey suave chutzpah, the slick sleight of hands, creating a sense of urgency. Directors often employ multiple angles, split screens (Brian DePalma is a master of such visual creativity) to allow the viewers to grasp all the angles involved in the con similar to how the mind of a con artiste works. But director Rohan Sippy chooses to present the story in a rather straight-forward manner with minimum style which brings about a certain dullness to proceedings. The one con scene (besides the one at the beginning) is credible but the director allows it to drag far too long.
Then ofcourse there is the Simmi-Roy romance which is an annoying distraction. Every scene featuring Priyanka and Abhishek brings the movie to a screeching halt. It's obvious that not enough attention was given to this part of the story. How else would you explain the lame, repetitive, melodramatic dialogues? They share no chemistry to speak off and everytime the viewers would hope that the director would stop with the romance and just get on with the con.

Priyanka Chopra seems distinctly uncomfortable everytime she's on screen. She delivers a wooden performance. However the screenplay should also share the blame for not giving her much to work with. For instance, during the first half, Abhishek tries on numerous occasions to patch things up with Priyanka but she categorically lets him know that she is thru' with him. But as soon as she finds out that he has a life-threatening tumor and only few months to live, she breaks off her engagement with her present fiance, and declares her desire to spend the rest of her days with Roy. Talk about a remarkable U-Turn!

A lot has been riding on Abhishek Bachchan from this movie even though he has had a fantastic year. He is under pressure to deliver a solo-hit. His performance in this movie is uneven to say the least. There are some portions where he excels but for a major portion of the movie he chooses to play it straight without that certain pizzazz, smoothness or finesse which the role so desperately required. He needs to work on some dance moves. Dancing is not one of Abhishek Bachchan's strength's but he developed his own unique style in YUVA (Dola Dola song) which worked and was successful. But now it's getting repetitive .

Three fantastic reasons why this movie is worth watching once- Riteish Deshmukh, Nana Patekar and the humor they bring to the movie. Riteish might well be the suprise package of the movie. He's one of those actors who's been making quiet yet steady progress. He has come a long way from his disastrous debut - Out of Control, turning in a fine comic performance in Masti. In this movie too he shines as the wannabe cool, eager to please shishya (student). He oozes confidence and provokes consistent laughter with his comic timing and funny dialogues.

But Nana's performance blows us away. He virtually steals the show every time he appears on the screen. The movie has reserved some of the better-crafted lines for nana to chew on and he delivers them with spontaneous ease leaving the viewers in splits. Boman Irani is strangely subdued.

The music is awesome, but the picturizations leaves a lot to be desired. Clearly Indian directors and choreographers are hell bent upon importing the American Hip-hop influence into their movies. Good for them. Let's see how long this trend shall continue.

Bluffmaster - Unimpressive effort.

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