Cast: Anupam Kher, Annu Kapoor, Piyush Mishra, Akshay Kumar, Lisa Haydon
Direction: Abhishek Sharma
Rating:**
A few years back when this phase of remaking the cult classics was marking its onset in Bollywood, at that time probably nobody would have thought that it's not the onset of a new trend for some good. Rather it's the onset of an epidemic which instead of benefiting in any manner will rather start shipwrecking the stature and repute of the original masterpieces.
Fiddling with some of the epic cine gems is no longer a new phenomena in present day Bollywood. But as stated, that despite the bombing of some the remakes like "RGV Ki Aag", "Chashme Baddoor", "Himmatwala" and "Karz", this fascination seems to be turning in to a sort of "irresistible epidemic" through which in order to satiate their cine aspirations many of the film maker of present age are buying the rights of some of the cult classics and are selling it to viewers on the name of previous path breakers, but after thoroughly mutilating them. And despite failures of many of the remakes in the recent past don't know why our Bollywooders are unable to leave their idiosyncrasy of maiming these cinematic gems and coming up with something original.
And one such example of aforementioned fact is recently released "The Shaukeens" which is tangentially a remake of Basu Mukherjee's, Ashok Kumar, Utpal Dutt, A.K. Hangal starrer "Shaukeen".
Although the makers of "The Shaukeens" claimed that the movie is a remake of 80s classic, but factually it turns out to be an eponym with just "The" and an extra 'S' prefixed and suffixed to it. And besides, what "The Shaukeens" has in common with "Shaukeen" is that lecherous attitude of three senile satyromaniacs who are madly obsessed with women more than half their age. Sounds juicy,huh? But in reality this cine idea turned out to be far more bland than it would have looked while being on paper.
Anyhow leave everything apart let's enlighten you about the premise first. This directorial venture of Abhishek Sharma, just like original starts with the voice over of Khiladi Kumar Akshay who introduces us to three Delhi based self proclaimed sex starved lover-boys...oops I mean geezers, Laali (Anupam Kher,an unhappy husband saddled with a pious wife), KD (Annu Kapoor, a bachelor at 60 wanton) and Pinki (Piyush Mishra, a widower) who are desperately in need of satiating their concupiscent cravings.
And in order to gratify their "Libidinal Hephaestus" this lecherous troika decide to have a erogenous expedition at KD's farm house. But unfortunately their this plan goes to pot as the female escorts whom they called repudiate them after seeing the "Senile 60" status. After the bombing of many such endeavor the three come across an advice of unleashing the beast hidden within them at any such country which is more bounteous towards the expression of such amorous dogmas.
The trio takes this million dollar advice quite seriously and take off to Mauritius for a fun filled trip and rent an accommodation of a beautiful fashion designer Ahana (Lisa Haydon), who share everything pertaining to her life with them soon after meeting them. With frames rolling ahead Ahana decides to end her life after breaking up from her boyfriend. But her plan goes kaput after she spots her dream man Akshay Kumar performing at a mall and unaware of their lecherous intents reveals a desire to our band of "Senile 60", that she can do anything for the man who will make her have a rendezvous with Akshay. After hearing this from their fantasy woman all three oldies start deploying one or the other stratagem in order to impress her. So who wins eventually? To know you have to watch this partially humorous cine chronicle of Abhishek Sharma.
Although premise of The Shaukeens is something borrowed one, but in-spite of that I don't have any qualms in saying that, a cine concept like this always has a scope to deliver the quality of entertainment which can make even a tyrant go ROTFL. But mind you this is something I am saying while referring to the cine idea which "Shaukeen" had at its core not ,"The Shukeens". And that's because unlike the original this edition of "Shaukeen" or "The Shaukeen" has been twisted and and stretched at some places that it make even most factious dialogues look bland.
Though while watching this cine volume penned by Tigmanshu Dhulia and Sai Anand it looks quite conspicuous that the duo have tried to induce a good dose of circumstantial humor after blending it with the "Current Gen" datum, but in-spite of that overdoing of few things like the repeated mention of Bangkok and words like Ghas**y literally boomerangs. All these humor chunks certainly succeed in inducing humor initially, but with the passage of time they start loosing their jocose potency. But yes at the same time there is another undeniable fact pertaining premise of "The Shaukeens" and that is, it takes off with a thorough lusciousness which hypnotizes you as soon as it marks its onset. But eventually fact turns out to be the biggest blooper for the movie because just before the half time "The Shaukeens" shifts to a drag mode, followed by a somewhat monotonous cine proceeding knitted in the second half too, which shatters all your preconceived expectations.
With a good dose of double entendre and at times "salaciousness right on face" kind of content dialogues of "The Shaukeens" look impressive initially but as stated above that eventually even they loose their amusing aroma.
As far as screenplay is concerned then it is doubtlessly better than its written counterpart i.e. premise and up till some extent succeeds in tickling your ribs, thanks to the cinematic excellence of Tigmanshu. But that doesn't mean that it is flawless. And I am saying so because whom so ever would have seen Abhishek's previous cine delight, "Tere Bin Laden" will find "The Shaukeens" not even half as entertaining as the previous cine stint of this otherwise talented director. But even here just like plot Tigmanshu and Abhishek didn't forget to strategically embed a few laughter whizzbangs like the number plate on a taxi (stating DLY-69) which trio board to reach the airport and the marvelous flowchart showing the evolution of a satyromaniac. Well the incorporation of creative ideas like these in the flow of the narration certainly unveils the glimpse of "creative humor" in the movie.
In editing sphere Rameshwar S Bhagat could not prove much with his redaction skills, probably because instead of bothering his scissors he preferred to rely on the cinematic excellence of other cine intellectuals associated with the movie, like the protagonists, story writer et al.
With entrancing sound tracks like "Manali Trance", "Meharbaai" and "Alcoholic" song, music of "The Shaukeens" is somewhat better. So thumbs up for Yo Yo Honey Singh Hard Kaur and their crew of musicians.
Well as far as performances are concerned then there is no denying the fact that nothing can be more blissful than watching three iconic performers (Anupam Kher, Annu Kapoor and Piyush Mishra) sharing the screen space. And that's because with these leaving legends performing in front of you it becomes next to impossible to handpick any one of them on the basis of their performance.
And even here in "The Shaukeens" the trio have looked in a tremendous form... But at the same time one can't deny the fact that despite having a mammoth potential within him even an iconic performer becomes feckless in the absence of a sinewy story underneath the entire cine venture.
After "Queen" Lisa seems to have reached the next level of performance and in "The Shaukeens" has looked quite effortless, but as they say that there is always a scope for improvement hence there is certainly some scope for improvement in her too. Although Akshay has been in an extended cameo but in spite of that he has looked no less than a mandatory pillar of the movie, and up till great extent contributes to the over all quality of the the movie, especially in the second half.
To sum up, after seeing this catastrophic condition of a cine idea which is already there on the rack of cult classics. Don't know why but I am feeling duty-bound to say that before going ahead with the remake or rather mutilation of some of the iconic movies of Indian cine history, cine makers of this era must start introspecting twice. And as far "The Shaukeens" is concerned then it is literally deplorable to say that despite having some of the best men belonging to movie making fraternity like Anupam Kher, Annu Kapoor, Piyush Mishra, Akshay Kumar, Tigmanshu Dhulia and even Abhishek Sharma it's the bad script which had the last laugh.
So keeping in view the praiseworthy performances of these iconic men, I am going ahead with generous two stars for this disappointing blooper, which otherwise in my view deserves a half a star less if we only consider the over all appeal of the end product.