Saturday, July 12, 2014

NEW: Bobby Jasoos could've done with a bit more plotting

I had high expectations, especially after Vidya Balan herself talked it up to me in May and Dia Mirza was buzzing about it in front of me in April, and it’s obvious that Bobby Jasoos is high on many production values, most notably characters and their development.

What it’s low on: cohesion and continuity. For real.

It starts off with wonderful premise, 30-year-old Bilkis (Bilkis!) “Bobby” wants to be a detective in Hyderabad’s old city, but nobody will give her a job or even the time of day. (Unless you count TV news hunk Tassawur [Ali Fazal], who pays her regularly to foil his dad’s attempts at marrying him off.) And her family is certainly less than understanding as well, worrying about marrying her off or at least reining her in enough to get her sister married off.

But then it devolves into continuity errors, seriously uneven pacing and desperate attempts to wind all of the threads together. (Case in point: Mysteriously Threatening Bad Guy A, a gangster in love with Bobby’s childhood friend [whose name is not even consistent] whom Bobby sort of blackmails, turns out to be the son of Mysteriously Threatening Bad Guy B, who is paying Bobby to find girls in the city who then quietly disappear.)


It’s not a wonder after Kahaani that we expect big twists from Vidya, and I don’t know that she’ll ever top that one. But the twist Bobby pulls at the end to catch the guy I twice called “the worst bad guy ever” (aka Mysteriously Threatening Bad Guy B) was much better conceived than it was executed, and in the end the bad-guy-isn’t-really-so-bad is more annoying than satisfying.

But if you want more evidence than that, most of the songs feel like an afterthought, especially as there are only two — maybe three? they’re that forgettable — jammed into the course of the movie. One of them is the “oh, hey, I’m in love!” song … which happens at a hospital in quite possibly one of the most awfully placed “oh, hey, I’m in love!” revelation scenes ever. (I laughed. Heartily.) And the hilariously twisted Sweety — “Oh sweety, can’t you see I am dancing for thee?” replied with, “Oh, sweety, can’t you see I am running from thee?” — is a wonderful tack-on at the end; I only wish it’d had some counterparts more expertly woven into the story.



But more about what is right in Bobby Jasoos and how I wish it was carried on.

Bobby is a wonderful character, smart, caring and also totally zany and stubborn. She likes disguising herself, which turns out several totally awesome characters, too. This is where the movie really has fun and shows some thought, in Bobby constructing convoluted but smart plots to find the missing girls.

I was worried that nine-years-younger Ali Fazal (great in 3 Idiots, effing terrible in Always Kabhi Kabhi) would be too young/immature for Vidya Balan, much like Shahid Kapoor was for Rani Mukherjee in Dil Bole Hadippa. BLISSFULLY NOT SO. And major kudos to the cast for this convoluted romance mostly work.



Tassawur is a great turn on the stereotypical heroine: He’s the one whose beauty is widey admired, he’s a chicken who won’t stand up to his parents, he’s something of a silly sidekick roped into Bobby’s adventures, he falls in love first (with song!), he’s the one preoccupied with marriage (and wedding clothes), and he has to eventually accept Bobby’s attempt at reconciliation. All of this while being a real character.

But their marriage — which starts off as sort of a ploy on Tassawur’s part and becomes a bargaining tool for both parties — isn’t the main focus of the movie or of Bobby. In fact, it’s sometimes an afterthought and wedding planning is used as an excuse sometimes for Bobby to go about her detective work (especially in a fun little scene where she drags the womenfolk to every biryani stand around).
  
I mean, how is this "undeserving of marriage"?
This is, like most Vidya movies, a real statement about a woman’s autonomy. “I’ve always played women in control of their own lives,” she told me, and that’s the case with Bobby, which is the upside of a movie that’s about an empowered woman.

The downside: Many male characters make blatantly awful statements, most of which we cringe at but some of which become more annoying in that the ones that seem to warrant a response don’t get one. When Bobby’s father says, “This household doesn’t run on a woman’s income; I’m still living,” she just runs away without even telling him it’s Rs. 50,000. When Tassawur’s dad says to him (with Bobby overhearing via wire) that Bobby is “undeserving of marriage,” Tassawur makes a feeble reply that “being career-oriented is a good thing” and then expressly walks away to console Bobby, who doesn’t say anything. “You know how people are,” Tassawur brushes it off.

But frustratingly both fathers are mostly horrible (maybe even more horrible than the bad guy). They’re rude to their wives and treat Bobby like dirt. And then just carry on. There’s certainly something to be said for shrugging off the haters and for respecting elders, but it might’ve been nice if all of Bobby’s spunk didn’t suddenly disappear when she’s being insulted.

Another continuity error, less blatant than her name-changing friend and the movie’s tone and speed. But still annoying.

48 comments:

  1. This one is nice you have written the film review as a blog this is also a unique idea we are getting the review from yahoo and we are getting the review from blog also but this is special mean i can see you have written very deep for some film nice one.

    translation in ahmedabad | translators in ahmedabad

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nice review on Bobby Jasoos. Thanks for sharing it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. nice post....For all the latest updates of bollywood visit

    http://bollywoodnentertainment.blogspot.in/

    ReplyDelete
  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Wow it is really wonderful and awesome thus it is very much useful for me to understand many concepts and helped me a lot. it is really explainable very well and i got more information from your blog.

    rpa training in Chennai | rpa training in pune

    rpa online training | rpa training in bangalore

    ReplyDelete
  6. Well done! Pleasant post! This truly helps me to discover the solutions for my inquiry. Trusting, that you will keep posting articles having heaps of valuable data. You're the best! 
    Data Science training in Chennai | Data science training in bangalore
    Data science training in pune| Data science online training
    Pyton training in Kalyan nagar

    ReplyDelete
  7. I appreciate your efforts because it conveys the message of what you are trying to say. It's a great skill to make even the person who doesn't know about the subject could able to understand the subject . Your blogs are understandable and also elaborately described. I hope to read more and more interesting articles from your blog. All the best.
    java training in annanagar | java training in chennai

    java training in chennai

    ReplyDelete
  8. Woah this blog is wonderful i like studying your posts. Keep up the great work! You understand, lots of persons are hunting around for this info, you could help them greatly.
    online Python certification course
    python training in OMR
    python training course in chennai

    ReplyDelete
  9. A very nice guide. I will definitely follow these tips. Thank you for sharing such detailed article. I am learning a lot from you.

    rpa training in electronic-city | rpa training in btm | rpa training in marathahalli | rpa training in pune

    ReplyDelete
  10. Your very own commitment to getting the message throughout came to be rather powerful and have consistently enabled employees just like me to arrive at their desired goals.
    Data science Course Training in Chennai | Data Science Training in Chennai
    RPA Course Training in Chennai | RPA Training in Chennai
    AWS Course Training in Chennai | AWS Training in Chennai

    ReplyDelete
  11. Wow,thank you for sharing!!! What a wonderful post!!Thanks for sharing such an awesome article with us!!
    Nepal holiday tour package whit NepalSafar...
    Visit now: www.nepalsafar.com

    ReplyDelete
  12. Thanks for taking the time to discuss and share this with us, I for one feel strongly about it and really enjoyed learning more about this topic. Please share some more useful info on acupuncture in Sharjah also. I can see that you possess a degree of expertise on this subject.

    ReplyDelete
  13. This entails stiff membership fees to earn playing rights. Semi-private golf courses sell memberships, and also afford non-members to play for a fee. cursos de ti online

    ReplyDelete
  14. After reading your article I was amazed. I know that you explain it very well. And I hope that other readers will also experience how I feel after reading your article.

    business analytics course

    data analytics courses in mumbai

    data science interview questions

    data science course in mumbai

    ReplyDelete
  15. Excellent Blog! I would like to thank for the efforts you have made in writing this post. I am hoping the same best work from you in the future as well. I wanted to thank you for this websites! Thanks for sharing. Great websites!
    business analytics course

    AI course in mumbai

    ReplyDelete
  16. Nice Article.very impressed for this informative
    data analytics courses

    ReplyDelete
  17. This is a wonderful article, Given so much info in it, These type of articles keeps the users interest in the website, and keep on sharing more ... good luck.

    best digital marketing courses

    ReplyDelete
  18. really interesting blog , appreciate for this , now also check Vicky, I do not think it's working out!

    ReplyDelete
  19. There's no doubt that the future education will see a lot of advancements. One such example is AWS Training In Hyderabad from Kelly Technologies...

    AWS Training In Hyderabad

    ReplyDelete

  20. This is the exact information I am been searching for, Thanks for sharing the required infos with the clear update and required points. To appreciate this I like to share some useful information regarding Microsoft Azure which is latest and newest,

    Data Science Training In Chennai

    Data Science Online Training In Chennai

    Data Science Training In Bangalore

    Data Science Training In Hyderabad

    Data Science Training In Coimbatore

    Data Science Training

    Data Science Online Training

    ReplyDelete
  21. Thanks for provide great informatic and looking beautiful blog, really nice required information & the things i never imagined and i would request, wright more blog and blog post like that for us. Thanks you once again

    Data Science Training in Hyderabad

    ReplyDelete



  22. Nice article and thanks for sharing with us. Its very informative


    AI Training in Hyderabad

    ReplyDelete
  23. Outstanding blog appreciating your endless efforts in coming up with an extraordinary content. Which perhaps motivates the readers to feel excited in grasping the subject easily. This obviously makes every readers to thank the blogger and hope the similar creative content in future too.

    Data Analytics Course in bhilai

    ReplyDelete
  24. This is really very nice post you shared, i like the post, thanks for sharing.. data scientist course in mysore

    ReplyDelete
  25. Its a great pleasure reading your post.Its full of information I am looking for and I love to post a comment that "The content of your post is awesome" Great work. data science training in kanpur

    ReplyDelete
  26. It is the perfect time to make some plans for the future and it is the time to be happy. I've read this post and if I could I would like to suggest some interesting things or suggestions. Perhaps you could write the next articles referring to this article. I want to read more things about it!
    data analytics course in hyderabad

    ReplyDelete
  27. Bandicam Serial Key enables fast, quality screen recording. Bandicam helps H.264 pre-made HD and can history higher resolutions at a greater Bandicam Registered Free

    ReplyDelete
  28. Portraiture, free and safe download. Portraiture latest version: A portrait plugin for Photoshop. Portraiture is a photography program Portraiture Plugin For Photoshop CS6 Free Download Crack

    ReplyDelete
  29. Hello,
    Your article provides an insightful critique of "Bobby Jasoos," acknowledging its strengths in character development and empowerment while highlighting issues with cohesion and continuity. It offers a balanced perspective on the film's pros and cons. Well-analyzed!
    Data Analytics Courses in Nashik

    ReplyDelete
  30. decent movie, could have been better. thanks for such great review
    Digital marketing business

    ReplyDelete
  31. Intriguing review, insightful critiques. Captivating analysis of Bobby Jasoos. Thanks for sharing your perspective

    Digital marketing tips for small businesses

    ReplyDelete
  32. This fantastic blog is extremely good and well enjoyed with good content. Thanks for the nice blog.
    Digital marketing courses in city of Westminster

    ReplyDelete
  33. I found your blog post to be both informative and inspiring. This very impressive and interesting blog. This is a Great Job.
    Data analytics framework

    ReplyDelete