GolMaal
When your objective is clear from the onset, and when
you don’t veer from that objective (save on a limited 2-3 occasions) the results
are usually quite successful and the same holds true for Rohit Shetty’s Golmaal.
His objective is to make people laugh, to entertain, and overall to create an
enjoyable experience; his objective is not to create landmark cinema or an award
winning affair; he does not try to create a typical "masala” affair by
incorporating a little bit of everything and leaving the audience with nothing;
he wants to make you laugh, and that he does quite
successfully.
The film really does not have a strong
screenplay or story to boost of; however what it does have are very well etched
characters who move from one hilarious scene to another, scenes which are often
not even linked or required, but scenes which are absolutely rib-tickling. The
story of the film can be summed up in a sentence or two, but as mentioned
earlier, here the intention is just to make the viewer laugh; sometimes through
witty one liners, sometimes through smart aleck under the breathe retorts and
sometimes just though plain, slapstick comedy, without resorting to an inkling
of vulgarity. This film is a case in point that even though a comedy does not
require a strong story line, if the characters are well defined and the scenes
well written, and if the actors bring life to the characters and deliver the
lines with the required timing and chemistry which is the basic requirement of a
comedy, the film can work as is proven by Golmaal.
Golmaal is about 4 friends who have nothing better to
do in life other then con people in order to ensure that they have enough money
in their pockets to enjoy life on a day to day basis. When they get kicked out
of Laxman (Sharma Joshi’s) hostel the foursome of Gopal (Ajay Devagan) the gang
leader much to the dismay of the others, Madhav (Arshad Warsi in a superb
performance), Laxman, the relatively more well behaved and highly ethical of the
lot and Lucky (Tushar Kapoor) the one who can not speak and yet has some of the
best lines, in the process of evading a money lender, they land up at the
bungalow of a blind elderly couple (Paresh Rawal and Sushmita Mukherjee) and
pose as their only grandson from America. However, their well planned execution
goes astray and instead of 1 of them being the grandson while the remaining 3
are to be silent occupants, the grandson Sameer enters as a combination of
Laxman and Gopal, wherein Laxman is the body and Gopal is the voice.