Starring: Anupam Kher, Piyush Mishra, Annu Kapoor, Lisa Haydon, Akshay Kumar
Directed by Abhishek Sharma
Rating: *
The Shaukeens doesn’t know what it wants to be. Is it a remake of the 1982 Basu Chatterjee comedy or a vehicle to underline Akshay Kumar’s star appeal? In trying to balance itself between these two stools, it falls flat on its nose.
The screenplay is random, supported by an interminable drone of a voiceover, flitting from the Akshay track, where he keeps making digs and jokes at himself and the cinema he represents, obviously a smartass way of rendering himself even more larger-than-life. Don’t they say that in Bollywood good does sell, but the bad sells even better?
The second track, involving three desperate, horny old men from Delhi—Pinky, KD, Laali (Piuysh, Annu, Anupam)—gives a raunchier twist to Chatterjee’s ‘family’ film that still gets shown often on television. The object of their affection is Ahana (Lisa Haydon), whose house guests they are in Mauritius. Now Ahana is a diehard fan of Akshay, who is shooting there. And thus as the plot fuses clumsily, the resolution gets more inept. Anupam and Annu fit in their characters; Lisa as the Facebook-obsessed bimbo is so irritating that the ‘hot’ image she was labelled with post Queen disintegrates fast; and Piyush, a wonderful actor, does even worse. The original Shaukeens was pathbreaking in showing the respected A.K. Hangal in his swimming trunks. It shocked no doubt. In the remake, when Piyush strips down to his chaddis, all you feel is loathing.
