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A sad, sad film

Syed Firdaus Ashraf

After a long list of average films, Govinda is back. And Joru Ka Ghulam is another one of his comic capers.

This time round, Govinda is Raja, who -- with the help of another small-time crook, Kanhaiya (Johny Lever) -- makes a living ripping off people at airports. Which is how he comes across NRI Raju Patel (Ali Asghar) who's here to marry a Bharatiya nari.

Patel is the son of a family friend of Dhaneshwar Pitamber (Kader Khan), who has four daughters. All the four, including Durga ( Twinkle Khanna), the youngest, are most reluctant to give up their spinster status, much to daddy dearest's unhappiness. Raja and Kanhaiya dupe Patel and send him to mental asylum. Raja then enters Dhaneshwar's home as Raju.

All the four sisters have strange reasons to avoid tying the knot. One is not willing to get married because she hates mankind. The second has not been able to find a man who is willing to fulfill her five conditions. The third one's boyfriend has ditched her, so she decides she will not marry. And Durga thinks no man is good enough for her.

Dhaneshwar is ready to pay Rs 5 crore to any person who will marry one of his daughters. But his daughters make every prospective suitor's life miserable. Raju, however, convinces Durga he is made for her. But Dhaneshwar stipulates he will permit Durga to marry -- and Raja to get his Rs 5 crores -- only when his other three daughters have found their match. Which puts Raju in a fix. The rest of the story is about how he solves this problem.

The script, though similar to the Shammi Kapoor-Babita flick, is treated differently. Both Govinda and Johny Lever have given excellent performances. Twinkle is passable, but the three unknown sisters are not. Producer-director Shakeel Noorani has, much to the film's drawback, not bothered to look for good actresses.

Ashish Vidyarthi's role as the South Indian gangster is minuscule enough to be non-existent. But Razzak Khan, who plays Kader Khan's sidekick, is hilarious, especially with the chaste Urdu he uses. It's a pleasant change from his earlier roles as roadside tapori. Ashok Saraf, on the other hand, is quite disappointing in his role as Govinda's small-time thug uncle. And he plumbs to his depths as the NRI businessman.

The biggest disappointment, however, is Aadesh Srivastava's music. Except for Niche phoolon ki dukan, upar gori ka makan, none of the songs are worth a mention.

Also, I couldn't figure why the film has been named Joru Ka Ghulam when there aren't any married couples who justify the title. In fact, there aren't any married couples, period. And Govinda, whose career seems to need a lot of support at the moment, will definitely not get any help from this film.