1 star
Fridays are becoming a messy hodgepodge in Bollywood with each transient months/years, in the matter of getting an epochal release. On the contrary, releasing a fim on the very first Friday of the New Year is pervasively considered to be jinxed. The directors/producers do vouch for the same. And when there are myriad of Bollywood films churning out every single Friday, they are now being left barehanded other than to explore the date. 18 years heretofore, Amitabh Bachchan's production company had launched Arshad Warsi with "Tere Mere Sapne". At the moment, the two are grappling with each other in the most abstemious manner as the re-release of "Sholay" in the 3D version has "Mr. Joe B. Carvalho" running in theatres concomitantly. The movie was shot in all of 58 days in Goa, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Coorg.
Mr. Joe B. Carvalho is a mad-cap detective caper of a bumbling detective a la Inspector Jacques Clouseau of The Pink Panther fame, who becomes the catch of fallacious identity. General Kopa Bhalerao Kabana (Snehal Dhabi), who is a ruler of a small island in Africa, has managed to ensnare an attractive young woman, Gehna Naidu (Geeta Basra), daughter of a liquor baron from Bengaluru. Problem is that Gehna rejects him the minute they come face to face realising that he looks like the back of a truck. After dumping Kopa, Gehna quickly hitches up with Lohesh Garodia, son of a prominent diamond merchant, Kamlesh Garodia. Hell hath no fury like a General scorned and so Kopa kabana decides that come what may, this wedding will not happen. MK, top don and electronics dealer from India, is leading contender for the job of Wedding-Destroyer Number 1 but loses out to the kaatil of international repute, the dangerous, ominous and mysterious master-of-disguise Carlos aka Big C (Javed Jaffrey). Confident kaatil Carlos flies down to India and now has a mission to accomplish, a jealous don MK to watch out for, and an unexpected element who will change the game altogether - the protagonist, the naive, inept, simple-minded private eye, Joe B Carvalho, when read in Hindi expounds to “you can make me do anything”, played by Arshad Warsi, who has only recently graduated to ‘complicated’ cases from finding the cable TV-stealing neighbours to looking for a young woman Neena Khurana (Karishma Kotak), who elopes with chef Ramlaal. His search takes him to the hotel room of Carlos, a vicious villain with a personality disorder, played by Jaaved Jaffrey. MK (Vijay Raaz) and goons (who don't know what the master-of-disguise Carlos really looks like), who are also out to get Carlos, believe Joe is Carlos. Here Joe also comes face to face with an ex-flame, Inspector Shantipriya Phadnis (Soha Ali Khan), the cop assigned to tackle the Carlos case. She starts to believe that the man she used to love has turned into a brute antar-rashtriya khooni. Carlos is so dangerous that no one can survive him. There’s a running gag in the film that whoever says his name, dies. He’s so much bad luck that it’s bad luck seven times over. After a lot of hesitation, she swears she will nab Joe and doesn't matter if she has to weave a web of love and deceit around him.
The story/screenplay by Mahesh Ramchandani can be regarded as straight-faced comedy with simple, corny & indeterminate plot. Samir Tewari, who makes his directorial debut with the movie performs his job with utmost sincerity and total belief in the script. Anshumaan Singh Thakur, the additional cameraman, too has lent able support. Parag Chadha has done a remarkable job in casting such a talented bunch of actors. Ravi Verma's stunts have more of Southern flavour to them with goons flying even with a simple punch offered by both the leads and are funny. In case of costumes, Tanya Pal has avowedly done a sagacious job in styling up the characters as per their roles. Soha Ali Khan has donned a khakee uniform, apsara outfit, cabaret costume, bikini and even a towel as well, for the first time on-screen. Before he became an actor, Arshad Warsi was a choreographer -- and he returns to choreographing after a hiatus of 20 years with Mind Blastic song. Rest of the songs are choreographed funnily by Chinni Prakash. There's this particular scene, where Vijay Raaz follows Arshad & Soha in the later part of the second half, is a laughathon.
On the flip side, the jokes fall flat at numerous occasion. The situations/characters try hard to chuckle you, but fail miserably. Aseem Bajaj's cinematography vacuous. There's nothing in the film which has got an iota of intelligence. The substandard visual effects by Just Right Studioz are absolute letdown. Dharmendra Sharma's editing causes one to extemporaneously nap. Adding to the misery, a song pops out of nowhere. Amartya Rahut, a relatively inexperienced music composer (as far as the Hindi film industry is concerned), has tried to take his chance by the horns. ''Chumma Chaati'' (Singer: Shefali Alvaris, Amartya Rahut & Pinky Maidsani; Lyricist: Amitabh Bhattacharya) is amusingly unconventional, idiosyncratic & comic situational party track. ''Mind Blastic'' (Singer: Neeraj Shridhar; Lyricist: Puneet Sharma) introduces the lead protagonist Arshad Warsi & is a narcissist oft-heard track. ''Ring Ring'' (singer: Subhajit Mukerjee; lyricist: Virag Mishra) is based more on the basis of famous nursery rhyme Ringa Ringa Roses and the lyrics are lucid. The situational ''Ae Ji Suniye'' (singer: Hamsika Iyer & Amartya Rahut; Lyricist: Virag Mishra) is a humorous cum inconsequential track. Javed Jaffrey sings and writes the lyrics for "Carlos", which is wacky, nonsensical and an introduction track to his many-faced character. Overall, the music is an absolute letdown. The production value is tacky. Vardhraj Kamath's art is uninhabited. Ditto for the background score.
Arshad Warsi is an incredible actor, virtually. He slips into the role with utmost ease & such finesse. In a comedy movie like this, the pain is keeping a straight face and ignoring the stupidity one is doing and Arshad has done this with unblemished faith and conviction. Soha Ali Khan learnt martial arts and cartwheel for the tailor-made role. She's ever done intense or girl-next-door stuffs & this time round, she's got out of this stereotype. Right from fighting, dancing, doing comedy to running after the bad guys, she's doing everything in the film, which traditionally a hero does. She's consummately brilliant. Jaaved Jaaferi is there as an African guy, a sadhu, a blonde as well as a Maharashtrian woman. He dons the different quirky avatars every time he comes onscreen. He has the inherent talent of impeccable comic timing. Yet he emits villainy with hubris. He is phenomenal throughout. Kunal Khemu has a cameo. Salman Khan is the *invisible* hero. Babul Supriyo, Geeta Basra, Himani Shivpuri, Navni Prahar, Manoj Joshi, Rajesh Balwani, Ranjeet, Shakti Kapoor, Snehal Dhabi, Veerendra Saxena, Vijay Raaz and Vrajesh Hirjee are wasted teetotally in their respective roles. Zeke and Zene Warsi are following their father's footsteps.
To sum up, it is a brainless story of brainless characters, which has some genuine funny moments, but they are few & far between. One of the taglines to the movie is ‘Leave your brain at home' because the makers too, have left their brains while filming. The movie is made for the dummies, by the dummies. A colossal disappointment!
Fridays are becoming a messy hodgepodge in Bollywood with each transient months/years, in the matter of getting an epochal release. On the contrary, releasing a fim on the very first Friday of the New Year is pervasively considered to be jinxed. The directors/producers do vouch for the same. And when there are myriad of Bollywood films churning out every single Friday, they are now being left barehanded other than to explore the date. 18 years heretofore, Amitabh Bachchan's production company had launched Arshad Warsi with "Tere Mere Sapne". At the moment, the two are grappling with each other in the most abstemious manner as the re-release of "Sholay" in the 3D version has "Mr. Joe B. Carvalho" running in theatres concomitantly. The movie was shot in all of 58 days in Goa, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Coorg.
Mr. Joe B. Carvalho is a mad-cap detective caper of a bumbling detective a la Inspector Jacques Clouseau of The Pink Panther fame, who becomes the catch of fallacious identity. General Kopa Bhalerao Kabana (Snehal Dhabi), who is a ruler of a small island in Africa, has managed to ensnare an attractive young woman, Gehna Naidu (Geeta Basra), daughter of a liquor baron from Bengaluru. Problem is that Gehna rejects him the minute they come face to face realising that he looks like the back of a truck. After dumping Kopa, Gehna quickly hitches up with Lohesh Garodia, son of a prominent diamond merchant, Kamlesh Garodia. Hell hath no fury like a General scorned and so Kopa kabana decides that come what may, this wedding will not happen. MK, top don and electronics dealer from India, is leading contender for the job of Wedding-Destroyer Number 1 but loses out to the kaatil of international repute, the dangerous, ominous and mysterious master-of-disguise Carlos aka Big C (Javed Jaffrey). Confident kaatil Carlos flies down to India and now has a mission to accomplish, a jealous don MK to watch out for, and an unexpected element who will change the game altogether - the protagonist, the naive, inept, simple-minded private eye, Joe B Carvalho, when read in Hindi expounds to “you can make me do anything”, played by Arshad Warsi, who has only recently graduated to ‘complicated’ cases from finding the cable TV-stealing neighbours to looking for a young woman Neena Khurana (Karishma Kotak), who elopes with chef Ramlaal. His search takes him to the hotel room of Carlos, a vicious villain with a personality disorder, played by Jaaved Jaffrey. MK (Vijay Raaz) and goons (who don't know what the master-of-disguise Carlos really looks like), who are also out to get Carlos, believe Joe is Carlos. Here Joe also comes face to face with an ex-flame, Inspector Shantipriya Phadnis (Soha Ali Khan), the cop assigned to tackle the Carlos case. She starts to believe that the man she used to love has turned into a brute antar-rashtriya khooni. Carlos is so dangerous that no one can survive him. There’s a running gag in the film that whoever says his name, dies. He’s so much bad luck that it’s bad luck seven times over. After a lot of hesitation, she swears she will nab Joe and doesn't matter if she has to weave a web of love and deceit around him.
The story/screenplay by Mahesh Ramchandani can be regarded as straight-faced comedy with simple, corny & indeterminate plot. Samir Tewari, who makes his directorial debut with the movie performs his job with utmost sincerity and total belief in the script. Anshumaan Singh Thakur, the additional cameraman, too has lent able support. Parag Chadha has done a remarkable job in casting such a talented bunch of actors. Ravi Verma's stunts have more of Southern flavour to them with goons flying even with a simple punch offered by both the leads and are funny. In case of costumes, Tanya Pal has avowedly done a sagacious job in styling up the characters as per their roles. Soha Ali Khan has donned a khakee uniform, apsara outfit, cabaret costume, bikini and even a towel as well, for the first time on-screen. Before he became an actor, Arshad Warsi was a choreographer -- and he returns to choreographing after a hiatus of 20 years with Mind Blastic song. Rest of the songs are choreographed funnily by Chinni Prakash. There's this particular scene, where Vijay Raaz follows Arshad & Soha in the later part of the second half, is a laughathon.
On the flip side, the jokes fall flat at numerous occasion. The situations/characters try hard to chuckle you, but fail miserably. Aseem Bajaj's cinematography vacuous. There's nothing in the film which has got an iota of intelligence. The substandard visual effects by Just Right Studioz are absolute letdown. Dharmendra Sharma's editing causes one to extemporaneously nap. Adding to the misery, a song pops out of nowhere. Amartya Rahut, a relatively inexperienced music composer (as far as the Hindi film industry is concerned), has tried to take his chance by the horns. ''Chumma Chaati'' (Singer: Shefali Alvaris, Amartya Rahut & Pinky Maidsani; Lyricist: Amitabh Bhattacharya) is amusingly unconventional, idiosyncratic & comic situational party track. ''Mind Blastic'' (Singer: Neeraj Shridhar; Lyricist: Puneet Sharma) introduces the lead protagonist Arshad Warsi & is a narcissist oft-heard track. ''Ring Ring'' (singer: Subhajit Mukerjee; lyricist: Virag Mishra) is based more on the basis of famous nursery rhyme Ringa Ringa Roses and the lyrics are lucid. The situational ''Ae Ji Suniye'' (singer: Hamsika Iyer & Amartya Rahut; Lyricist: Virag Mishra) is a humorous cum inconsequential track. Javed Jaffrey sings and writes the lyrics for "Carlos", which is wacky, nonsensical and an introduction track to his many-faced character. Overall, the music is an absolute letdown. The production value is tacky. Vardhraj Kamath's art is uninhabited. Ditto for the background score.
Arshad Warsi is an incredible actor, virtually. He slips into the role with utmost ease & such finesse. In a comedy movie like this, the pain is keeping a straight face and ignoring the stupidity one is doing and Arshad has done this with unblemished faith and conviction. Soha Ali Khan learnt martial arts and cartwheel for the tailor-made role. She's ever done intense or girl-next-door stuffs & this time round, she's got out of this stereotype. Right from fighting, dancing, doing comedy to running after the bad guys, she's doing everything in the film, which traditionally a hero does. She's consummately brilliant. Jaaved Jaaferi is there as an African guy, a sadhu, a blonde as well as a Maharashtrian woman. He dons the different quirky avatars every time he comes onscreen. He has the inherent talent of impeccable comic timing. Yet he emits villainy with hubris. He is phenomenal throughout. Kunal Khemu has a cameo. Salman Khan is the *invisible* hero. Babul Supriyo, Geeta Basra, Himani Shivpuri, Navni Prahar, Manoj Joshi, Rajesh Balwani, Ranjeet, Shakti Kapoor, Snehal Dhabi, Veerendra Saxena, Vijay Raaz and Vrajesh Hirjee are wasted teetotally in their respective roles. Zeke and Zene Warsi are following their father's footsteps.
To sum up, it is a brainless story of brainless characters, which has some genuine funny moments, but they are few & far between. One of the taglines to the movie is ‘Leave your brain at home' because the makers too, have left their brains while filming. The movie is made for the dummies, by the dummies. A colossal disappointment!
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