Coolie Cast # 1: Varun Dhawan, Sara Ali Khan, Paresh Rawal, Sahil Vaid, Shikha Talsania, Jaaved Jaaferi, Rajpal Yadav, Johny Lever, Manoj Joshi, Anil Dhawan, Bharti Achrekar
Director Coolie No 1: David Dhawan
Coolie No 1 Rating: A star
In 1995, director David Dhawan chose his favorite actor to play a carefree coolie who falls in love with a rich girl. Your arrogant father, who wants ‘just a beggarless prince’ for his beloved ‘beti’, is the obstacle, but no Bollywood dad can stop true love, loud comedy and musical dance, can he?
The Dhawan-Govinda-Karisma-Kader Khan-Shakti Kapoor combination gave us a film of its time, loaded with jokes that border on bad taste and dubious lyrics. It became one of the biggest hits of the year, which also gave us Rangeela, and DDLJ, because the man with a good heart from Govinda nailed it. At that time, at his peak, he managed to take almost everything – old-fashioned jokes, crimson suits, and no one could push his pelvis like him, not even his beautiful protagonists.
But that was a quarter of a century ago, and it seems that filmmakers have forgotten that the world has changed. Bollywood too. When you see Varun Dhawan, who channeled Govinda in many of his films much better, follow almost the same path, pronouncing almost the same lines, there is no laughter, only despair.
Small changes are not cool. The previous film was set in a village: Karisma was a gaon-ki-gori dressed in ghaghra, Govinda wanted to open a cement factory. In this, the gaon became Goa. Instead of a factory, it’s a port, and Sara Ali Khan is a city girl in ruffled minis and pointed stilettos. But the folly that was celebrated in its loudest tone, and the rat-a-tat speed with which the whole thing was performed, something that David Dhawan used to do so well, is lacking.
The time for plots built on paper is gone. It is painful to see acceptable actors going through jerky scenes and terrible laugh trails. Varun and Sara dancing to popular songs (“Tujhko mirchi lagi toh main kya karoon”) take you back to OG. The only one who eats a meal with his character, played by the inimitable Kader Khan in the original, is Paresh Rawal. Your heavy-handed dad uses a light touch, which is exactly what is needed in this type of brainless comedy. Dhawan Jr has done much better under his dad’s baton. And, unfortunately, the cheerful Sara Ali Khan is as empty as the script.
We can laugh in these dark times, but not like that, with zero intelligence, without talent.