Not a suitable boy

Not even Govinda and Kader Khan pitching in with their best can help save this dud from oblivion at the box office. There are films that a...

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Not even Govinda and Kader Khan pitching in with their best can help save this dud from oblivion at the box office. There are films that are made to be flops, usually those that don’t waste much time over storylines and characterisation, but believe that the job is done once a popular star has been roped in. Josh last week was one such, though it must be admitted that its slick production values were a relief.

Joru Ka Ghulam does not have even that saving grace. It takes you back to the 1980s, when Hindi cinema was still grappling with the loss of Amitabh Bachchan and yet to find Aamir Khan. Shoddy production, a tired storyline and inadequate attention paid to the product as a whole are only some of its flaws. All that and a really awful Twinkle Khanna — the girl can’t act, she can’t dance, why doesn’t she get married?

What makes it worse is that Joru Ka Ghulam opens on an interesting note, with the tale of a father (Kader Khan), whose four daughters — Lakshmi, Saraswati, Parvati and Durga (Twinkle) — are determined to foil his plans to marry them off. Enter two small-time crooks, Raja and Kanhaiya (Govinda and Johnny Lever), who have to find Rs 2 crore in a hurry to pay off Anna (Ashish Vidyarthi hamming so badly you want to cry). Khubsoorat anyone?Lured by the prospect of a Rs 5 crore dowry, Raja brings Durga to her knees in a grotesque version of The Taming of the Shrew, while Kanhaiya wins a second sister. But the father insists all or none. So they find the other two sisters suitable husbands so fast and easy, one wonders why the father did not attempt it himself.

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Nothing wrong with the story, unless you are thinking of crying out against its sheer chauvinism. But remember, this is a Hindi movie and a father lamenting that "Beti ki shaadi baap ke liye swarg ki seedi hoti hai (a daughter’s wedding is a father’s step into heaven)" is a perfectly normal state of affairs.

It’s the treatment that’s all wrong. We have been watching puerile tricks like those the four daughters use to scare off prospective suitors in innumerable films since the 1950s. Please, there are other ways of telling a man you don’t want to marry him than to offer him a Roohafza-Fevicol cocktail. Especially when you have a father who has indulged your every whim since you were born. The reasons why the girls won’t marry are as foolish as the ploys they use against matrimony.

Govinda’s attempts at comedy in the first half are what keep Joru Ka Ghulam going — you watch on hoping for some more. But after a really funny first half, you get so much rubbish that even Govinda can’t compensate. In the first place, why does a script about four daughters and their matrimonial plans have the poor man in practically every scene, while the daughters themselves are mere clothes-horses, brought back into focus only when director-producer Shakeel Noorani remembers them?

For a diehard Govinda fan, Joru ka Ghulam was a fiasco. Don’t make the mistake of going to see it. Remember, Refugee and Tarkieb are just round the corner.

— Mimmy Jain