GHANCHAKKAR (BOLLYWOOD)

Major, movie- attendee alert: do NOT see this film if this is your first taste of Bollywood fare; its preposterous scenario will leave you bereft of any desire to imbibe again; I have experienced worse but this tedious, torturous rendition of a bank robber slowly, creepily losing his memory, including the whereabouts of the absconded loot, is rivetingly boring, painfully uninteresting, a Herculean trial of one’s endurance.

Three masked men, disguised  as actors Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra, Utpal Dutt rob a bank, prior to the Diwali Festival; “Sanjay” (Emraan Hashmi, lookalike for Colin Farrell) is the only one with an IQ over sixty and is the guardian of the spoils from their nefarious labor, for three months; he suffers a traumatic head injury, has partial memory loss, which progresses to the “Memento” level, plodding through the 2 &1/2 hours. His wife “Neetu” played by the immensely talented Vidya Balan, is buffoonish, as an outlandish, fashion- addicted woman, supportive of her purloining husband.

The conclusion rescues the film from anticipated predictability and desired amnesia; rarely in Bollywood movies is an audience left with unanswered questions; a problematic ending revolving around trust, fatality, life’s choices, resonates with reality and saves “Ghanchakkar” from catapulting into a total inconsequential, meaningless, irretrievable waste of time.

ONE & 1/2 STARS!!

For Now…………Peneflix