Synopsis:
Roy (Abhishek Bachchan) is a professional
conman in love for Simmi (Priyanka Chopra) who
believes in truth and honesty. Roy can’t
bring himself to tell her the reality of who he
is. But at their engagement party when she finds
out the truth, she breaks off the engagement.
Enter Aditya ‘Dittu’ Srivastava (Riteish).
He is the counterpoint to everything that Roy
is - as frantic as Roy is calm, as dumb as Roy
is smart, as untidy, as Roy is smooth. They have
only one thing in common- Dittu is a conman too.
In Roy’s book, he’s an embarrassment,
but one that won’t go away. Meanwhile Roy
finds out he ahs a brain tumour and only three
months to live. Despite himself, or maybe to take
his mind off Simmi, he agrees to teach Dittu the
rules of the game. In that process, he melts &
warms up to the boyish charm of his ‘student’.
Dittu wants revenge on powerful shark and hotel
owner Chandru (Nana Patekar) who had cheated his
father and pushed him into insanity. Roy and Dittu
decide to pull the mother of all cons over Chandru…
 For
all its style, some wonderful use of Mumbai locations,
witty dialogue and above all, a scene stealing
performance by Nana Patekar, Bluffmaster
fails to impress. A flimsy thin plot and an unconvincing
‘twist’ finale bog down this second
film of Rohan Sippy clearly ‘inspired’
by films like The Sting and Matchstick
Men.
The film does have its moments but they are few.
The credit card con and the income tax con work
in their own way. The dialogues in the film are
sparkling and clever - especially the sequence
where Roy uses the metaphor of various Mumbai
fish in describing the various types of ‘victims’
there are in the city. The cityscape is used well
and imaginatively in the film.
On the flip side, the climax (Matchstick
Men like) where the filmmaker tries to be
the biggest ‘bluffmaster’
of all is where the film really falls flat on
its face trying to be too clever. While it was
an interesting thought, its final unfolding is
totally unbelievable and rather than enjoy being
taken for a ride (Jewel
Thief (1967) for instance), you actually feel
the filmmaker thinks his audience is stupid enough
to buy anything. While he has tried to work logically
backwards to lead to this climax – when
you think about it Roy has his blackouts in Dittu’s
presence only or Priyanka is everywhere that Roy
is as he keeps banging into her, it is still more
of a gimmick gone wrong rather then anything else.
The other totally no-no portion of the film is
the romantic pairing that doesn’t really
work because the romantic scenes of Roy trying
to win Simmi back are pedestrian to say the last
and there is a total lack of chemistry between
Abhishek and Priyanka. The plot too is full of
inconsistencies. For all his sophistication and
being the biggest conman of all, Roy hasn’t
even heard of Chandru. Surely he would know who’s
who among the rich and powerful of Mumbai.
Coming to the performances, Abhishek Bachchan
is reliably efficient and suave in the title role
but just lacks that extra spark to rise above
the script and take the film that one rung higher.
While Abhishek has tasted success following the
success of Dhoom and Bunty
Aur Babli and the high level of confidence
and a strong screen presence are very much there
in place, performance wise be it Bunty Aur
Babli or
Dus or Sarkar while being more
than adequate, he has subsequently been unable
to match the level of his intense, searing act
in Yuva.
Admittedly in Bluffmaster the roles of
Dittu and Chandru play to the gallery much more
than Bachchan Jr’s title role but still…Priyanka
Chopra as the straightforward good, working girl
barely has anything to do. Boman Irani in spite
of a couple of inspired moments is under utilized
while Riteish is not bad having his comic moments.
However, the film is effortlessly stolen by Nana
Patekar. Though essaying yet another psychotic
criminal role, Patekar is hilarious making full
use of the wonderful dialogues given to him. The
scene where he worships himself as part of his
daily puja routine is a scream and Patekar carries
it off with élan as only he can.
On the technical side, special mention must be
made of Himman Dhamija’s camerawork capturing
Mumbai locales beautifully. Editing could have
been sharper and is even clumsy at places. The
first half particularly tends to snag at places.
The music works best in the use of remixed tracks
particularly the Sabse Bada Rupaiya track.
Thankfully the lengths of the songs are kept to
bearable lengths unlike most films of today which
unbearably go on for 6 minutes plus.
All in all Bluffmaster is strictly just about
an average film that leaves you disappointed as
one expected far more from the film considering
the talent involved. |
