Cast of Coolie No. 1: Varun Dhawan, Sara Ali Khan, Paresh Rawal, Sahil Vaid, Shikha Talsania, Jaaved Jaaferi, Rajpal Yadav, Johny Lever, Manoj Joshi, Anil Dhawan, Bharti Achrekar
Director Coolie No 1: David dhawan
Coolie Rating No 1: A star
In 1995, director David Dhawan got his favorite actor to play a carefree coolie who falls in love with a rich girl. His arrogant father who wants ‘only prince, not poor’ for his beloved ‘beti’ is the obstacle, but no Bollywood dad can stand in the way of true love, loud comedy and song dancing, right?
The Dhawan-Govinda-Karisma-Kader Khan-Shakti Kapoor combination gave us a movie from its time, loaded with jokes bordering on bad taste and dubious lyrics. It became one of the biggest hits of the year, which Rangeela and DDLJ also gave us, because Govinda’s kind-hearted mass man hit the spot. Right now, in his prime, almost anything could be pulled off: racy pranks, crimson suits, and no one could push a pelvis like him, not even his beautiful leads.
But that was a quarter of a century ago, and it seems that filmmakers have forgotten that the world has changed. Bollywood too. When you see Varun Dhawan, who has channeled Govinda much better in many of his films, he walks almost the same path, uttering almost the same lines, there is no laughter, only despair.
Minor changes do not produce freshness. The previous movie was set in a village: Karisma was a gaon-ki-gori dressed in ghaghra, Govinda wanted to establish a cement factory. In this, the gaon has become Goa. Instead of a factory, it’s a port, and Sara Ali Khan is a city girl in frilly minis and pointy stilettos. But missing the stupidity that was held at its highest, and the rat-a-tat speed with which everything was executed, something David Dhawan used to do so well, is missing.
The time for plots built on paper is over. It’s painful to watch passable actors go through jerky scenes and terrible laughter. Varun and Sara dancing to the still popular songs (“Tujhko mirchi lagi toh main kya karoon”) takes you straight back to the OG. The only one who revels in his character, played by the inimitable Kader Khan in the original, is Paresh Rawal. His heavy-handed father uses a light touch, which is exactly what is needed in this kind of brainless comedy. Dhawan Jr has done much better under his dad’s baton. And sadly, the vivacious Sara Ali Khan is as empty as the script.
We can do it with laughter in these dark times, but not like this, without wit, without style.
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