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Join UsStar Cast: Varun Dhawan, Sara Ali Khan, Paresh Rawal, Javed Jaffrey, Rajpal Yadav, Johnny Lever, Sahil Vaid, Shikha Talsania
Director: David Dhawan
What’s Good: They had a legendary cast to mess the things up, because such chaos wouldn’t have been bearable with a routine cast
What’s Bad: The thought of remaking a Govinda film without Govinda!
Loo Break: But promise me you won’t check the funny scenes from Govinda’s version while on the loo?
Watch or Not?: If you’ve to watch it for comical performances, you have many options to choose between; if you’ve to watch it for its story, you have the original
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A coolie named Raju (Govinda) falls in love with Malti (Karisma Kapoor) by looking at her photo. Pandit Shadiram Gharjode (Sadashiv Amrapurkar), who gets belittled by Malti’s dad Hoshiyar Chand (Kader Khan) promises Raju that he’ll hook him with her. To treat Hoshiyar Chand’s proud as* a lesson, Pandit Shadiram executes the plan of presenting Raju as Kunwar Raj Pratap Singh in front of Malti’s family.
Raju somehow manages to convince them that he’s the son of a filthy rich businessman and lure Malti in with his charm. Somehow Hoshiyar Chand gets to know about Raju’s truth, but what will he do? What trick will Raju pull out of his sleeve this time? To know what 1995’s Coolie No. 1 starring Govinda and Karisma Kapoor as that’s a better one, and hence I narrated the original’s story because nothing’s changed.
Coolie No. 1 Movie Review: Script Analysis
Rumi Jaffery still holds the credit of penning screenplays for the film. He goes ahead to offer a redone script according to today’s time with the characters are still stuck in the 90s. They don’t have cellphones to communicate to each other, they see a man wearing a driver’s costume and still misunderstand him as a plumber, Paresh Rawal is still relevant. Before Varun fans start bashing me, let’s jog through the past because I was the one who thoroughly enjoyed Judwaa 2 and even Sui Dhaaga. It was still okay to step into Salman Khan’s shoes, but Govinda proves to be a huge void to fill for Varun Dhawan.
The script of Coolie No. 1 is the good example of ‘can I copy your homework? Yeah, just change it up a bit.” Some fun sequences are so unconvincing ane some unconvincing sequence are unintentionally funny. Something like a kid at Mumbai Central railway station going to the tracks to grab his Captain America’s figure and sit on the tracks like it’s a park’s bench with no one around him giving a fu*k. I don’t even demand authenticity in a comic-caper. But this is when you cross the line of cinematic liberties giving us these blandly penned sequences.
The movie without Farhad Samji’s one-liners would’ve even been more entertaining. Someone should make a book with 50 of the worst Farhad Samji dialogues and call it as “50 Funny Dialogues Which Weren’t Funny At All.” If you don’t believe me, there’s a dialogue that says: Where there’s a will, there’s a lawyer.
Coolie No. 1 Movie Review: Star Performance
The portions in which Varun Dhawan is not trying to act like Govinda are the funniest bits of the movie. I know the complexities around remakes, but no matter what Varun could’ve done, criticism was inevitable. He is a good actor, and he has proved that multiple times now. His substantial screen presence and comic timing is overshadowed hy the fact of this film being an outrightly horrendous remake of the original.
Sara Ali Khan is still beautiful and still hasn’t got that one ‘claim to fame’. She still covers her various shortcomings with the eternal charm she possesses. A surprising factor to her character was her voice, why did she sound so much like Karisma Kapoor? The screeners we received had shit*y audio quality, it might be because of that, but if even done of you thought the same then comment down below.
Paresh Rawal is the only comedian from the superlative cast of comical actors close to being funny in specific sequences. If you’ve Javed Jaffrey, Rajpal Yadav, Johnny Lever along with Paresh in your film and it’s still not funny? That’s funny!
Sahil Vaid and Shikha Talsania are those side actors who have to be there because the original film had a role for their characters. They both together fail to gather a single laugh.
Coolie No. 1 Movie Review: Direction, Music
David Dhawan has made some legendary films & he has been one of the most successful directors in the industry. Remake formula worked well for him and Varun in the past, but this time it has backfired. Majorly because of an outdated story and Govinda’s unimaginable shoes to fill. You can’t judge this movie as standalone, because the story apart from the new characters and places depends entirely on the original. If you see Govinda’s Coolie No. 1 you won’t see it for the story; you’ll watch it for the performances. So, when you can already do that why you would want to watch its first copy?
Retaining a touch of original background score works well for a start, but over the time you just wish for a change. A couple of songs too are recreated minus the magic from its predecessor. They should’ve kept all the songs as the promotional material.
Coolie No. 1 Movie Review: The Last Word
All said and done; if in future we see many remakes of Coolie No. 1 being remade, this one still won’t be a close second. Inspired by Farhad Samji’s repeatedly used line in the film “Heaven on the dock man”, I came up with my version: “Hell on the dock man, if original was cheese this is chalk man!”
Two stars!
Coolie No. 1 Trailer
Coolie No. 1 releases on 25th December, 2020.
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