Movie Review | Cirkus gets everything wrong

Comedy is always a risk. One takes the route at one’s own risk. You never know what works, and what does not. In this Rohit Shetty film, generally, the comedy is crude, garish, loud and bordering on preposterous. More like Sajjad Khan’s ‘Humshakals’ than like the ‘Golmaal’ series by Rohit Shetty. The story of twins and the confusion they could create is a godsend for one searching for humour. The film itself refers ‘Ram aur Shyam’. However, it loses sight of ‘Do Dooni Char’, the Indian take on ‘Comedy of Errors’ remade with class by Gulzar as ‘Angoor’.

To state the obvious, Rohit Shetty would not even aspire to be Gulzar.

A doctor, Roy Jamuna Das (Murali Sharma), is out to prove that a man is made by circumstances and not by genetic engineering or inherited gene structure. He runs an orphanage and mixes two sets of twins — Roy and Joy — and gives them up for adoption. One set of Roy and Joy ends up in Ooty, where they run a circus and the attraction is the natural gift of Roy (Ranveer) who does not suffer an electric shock.

But, like with the original ‘Hello Brother’ twins, every time Roy in Ooty at the circus plays with electricity, his twin in Bengaluru suffers a shock. Joy, the attendant twin at both places, is doing nothing but playing second fiddle.

While Mala (Pooja Hegde) is married to Roy of the circus and yearning for a child and visits the orphanage, the other Roy has a girlfriend Bindu (Jacqueline Fernandez) whose father (Sanjay Mishra) is trying hard to break their relationship. When both the twins land in Ooty, there is the kick-off on mistaken identities and confusion and the resultant humour.

The humour is loud and an attempt to be slapstick. The genre is taken literally when people are expected to laugh when people get slapped for no reason. Loud to a fault, the cast simply does not support the weak script. A few one-liners work at best as ticklers. Nothing more. The entire narrative with Momo (Sidharth Jadhav) and his assistants is a test of your nerves. Adding to this is the narrative dealing with Polson (Johnny Lever). Being outlandish is mistaken for comedy. The fact that it still ensures a few laughs in the audience is perhaps an indication on what one will laugh at is always a matter of guessing.

With a one-line script, Rohit Shetty had to work on his other resources. In the ‘Golmaal’ series, he had a team of good actors, including Arshad Warsi, Tushar  Kapoor, Shreyas Talpade and Kunal Khemu. The over-dependence on the star quotient of Ranveer, who, anyway, fails to deliver is the main undoing of the film. He may have a lot of energy but when it comes to timing there is nothing to write home about. The energy works when he is dancing with Deepika but for the rest of the while, he is just not made for it. It is sad watching Varun Sharma’s presence being wasted. The one actor who has meat to his role and does all he can, given the ridiculous space, is Sanjay Misra.

This Cirkus gets everything, not just the spelling, wrong.