Bunty Aur Babli is a film of missed chances. Look at what the director Shaad Ali Sahgal had going for it – A great cast, the best production house of the country and an extremely strong technical crew. Hence, the disappointment is all the more. It is that nemesis of the Hindi film, yet again – the script. For a caper film, the screenplay needs to be crackerjack, witty, innovative, fast moving and engrossing -- none of which Bunty Aur Babli is. What is particularly disappointing in the film are the conning sequences that are just not clever or funny enough. (Hitchcock has often said that show procedures in a film only if it’s interesting enough, otherwise move on with the story) The only con that works well is perhaps the con involving the sale of the Taj Mahal.

The film is a tale of two young middle class people Rakesh aka Bunty and Vimmi aka Babli who run away from home to get away from the suffocation of their restrictive small town life. He is full of get rich schemes and needs financiers while she wants to be a model. As they keep running into each other, they decide to come to Mumbai to realize their dreams. Needing money to reach Mumbai, they get together to pull their first con. They reach Mumbai and decide to go back as conning is what they enjoy best and go at it full time. By now obsessed cop Dashrath Singh is hot on their trail getting closer all the time…

Bunty Aur Babli needs to be watched as an entertainer. Like most comedy caper films, logistics and sensibilities are to be kept aside. What has to work here are the scenes but the ones that do work are few and sporadic. Overall, the film seems curiously uninvolving and could have done with a far more energetic flow and more ups and downs. As it the character of the cop is introduced only at the interval stage (to desperately sustain interest for half two?) and hence the entire first half just rides on Bunty and Babli meeting each other and pulling off some cons. In that sense the film totally lacks conflict in the first half which really hasn’t got much going for it especially as mentioned before neither are the cons innovative nor is the other track – the development of romance between the Abhiskek and Rani handled well at all.

Where the film scores however is in its use of real locations, its well-mounted Production Design and colourful costumes. In that sense the film, an ode to 1970s Hindi Cinema (Don’t miss the Sholay tribute!), is extremely well stylized.

Coming to the performances – Rani Mukherji it seems can do no wrong these days. What’s more she just seems to be getting better and better with each passing film and is without doubt the best actress in mainstream Hindi Cinema today. She is the life of Bunty Aur Babli, be it the comic sequences (her wailing sequence as she remembers her mother) or the few emotional moments (confronting Abhishek after the birth of their child). Amitabh Bachchan’s strong screen presence and character tailored to the gallery helps lift the film several notches. If there is a disappointment in the acting department, it is Abhishek’s performance. Though he has his moments, he seems to be lacking the inherent energy for the character and in comparison to his co-stars appears flat and listless at times. A pity because it looked like Bachchan jr had finally broken through both as an actor and a star with his searing performance in Yuva and had enjoyed commercial success as well with Dhoom. It took great bravado to fashion a drunken scene around the two Bachchcans but unfortunately for junior, senior wins it hands down as he does the ‘item’ dance number they both do with Aishwarya Rai.

Musically, the item number Kajra Re crackles. Ash has never looked so hot on screen ever. Dhadhak Dhadak is otherwise the best-tuned and best picturised song of the film and the music by Shankar – Ehsaan – Loy is adequate enough. The other song that works best and has been used well in the film is the theme song. On the camerawork, while the film scores extremely well in its on-location photography, cinematographer and two time National Award Winner Abhik Mukherjee appears uncomfortable with the over dose of crane shots or senseless random ‘chakachak’ movements Hindi Cinema likes to employ thinking it is being technically slick…

All in all, Bunty aur Babli is time-pass at its best but otherwise nothing more…