Film Review:

Banner: Eros Entertainment,Big Screen Entertainer
Cast: Sunil Shetty,Tusshar Kapoor,Paresh Rawal, Upen Patel,Esha Deol,Neetu Chandra
Sameera Reddy, Tanisha Mukherjee
Direction: Ashwani Dheer
Production: Kumar Mangat, Sunil Lulla
Music: Raghav Sachar

123 comes your way as one of the so called multi-starrers of this year (at least that’s how it was promoted). The film attempts to bring in immense comedy on the basis of mistaken identities.

The film brings in the ace at television comedy –Ashwin Dhir who has been the maverick behind the success of the tele-serial ‘Office Office’. But we wonder whether television and cinema have the same pattern when it comes to humour?

To begin with, the diamonds belonging to a Don [Manoj Pahwa] accidentally fall in the hands of Chandu [Upen Patel] and Chandni [Tanishaa], who hide them in a car. Papa [Mukesh Tiwari] and his henchmen [Vrajesh Hirjee and Sanjay Mishra] are desperately hunting for the diamonds, while police officer Mayavati Chautala [Neetu Chandra] is on the lookout for any offenders.

Enter the first Laxmi Narayan [Tusshar Kapoor] who is from a mafia family and his mother prays and awaits his first successful murder. He comes to Hotel Blue Diamond to knock off Papa which is his last chance to prove himself as Bhai.

Enter the second Laxmi Narayan [Suniel Shetty] who is also sent to Hotel Blue Diamond to collect a new car for his boss from Laila [Sameera Reddy]. The third Laxmi Narayan [Paresh Rawal] is a hawker who has made so much money selling under-garments on the footpath that he has set up a lingerie factory now. His son sends him to Hotel Blue Diamond to collect lingerie samples from upcoming designer Jiya [Esha Deol].

The three Laxmi Narayans are at the same place, at the same time. They get letters and photographs meant for the other. The first Laxmi Narayan gets lingerie designer Jiya's photo,the second Laxmi Narayan gets Papa's photo and the third Laxmi Narayan gets Laila's photo . A series of events follow which get different personalities intertwined as mistaken identities take over.

Director Ashwani Dhir fails miserably at holding the viewers attention and making one laugh. Some jokes are good but majority of it is just plain boring and more annoying. The script is loose and some characters are just so irrelevant to the script. Take for example Tanishaa and Upen Patel.

Also the manner in which Esha falls in love with Tusshar on realizing that he is a don is just so stupid. Just observe the expressions on Esha’s face when she explains her concept of an exciting love story with a bhai.

Most dialogues in the film are plain one liners, most of them not worth remembering. Some scenes evoke a gross feeling rather than being funny. The scene where Paresh Rawal argues with two women over their bra size and the remark that her husband always asks him her size before buying one is gross.

On the acting front, Suniel shetty initially impresses but eventually annoys with the ‘aapka left ya mera left sir?’ dialogue. He tries his Bhola act once again and this time it fails majorly because of a weak script.

Paresh Rawal offers nothing new; he just seems to be repeating his character over and over again. He barely makes you laugh and the so called funny erotic number between Paresh and Sameera could have been avoided.

Tusshar Kapoor fails to impress either with his jokes or few elements of bhaigiri . Upen Patel is absolutely wasted. Manoj Pahwa and Mukesh Tiwari followed by Sanjay Mishra are the best lot in the film. They bring life to their character and also in case of Mukesh , he comes as a revelation in comedy.

The ladies in the film are purely added for the glamour quotient. None of them impress with their acting except for Neetu Chandra who comes in as a surprise package as a cop with not much scope in the film.

Even the pretty Sameera, Esha and Tanishaa can’t complement the music of the film by Raghav Sachar. Some tracks are good but the placement of the tracks kills it all. The title track and the ‘Lakshmi Narayan’ dialogue filled track adds flavor.

On the whole, 123 fails to impress. The jokes get monotonous and the script is loose. Ashwani Dhir maybe be an ace at television but forgets that the comedy in cinema has to be much tighter and crisp, after all you just have 2 ½ hours to make the audience laugh. At the box office it surely means much higher revenues for Abbas Mastan’s RACE.