All is Well **
Dir: Umesh Shukla.
With: Abhishek Bachchan, Rishi Kapoor, Asin, Supriya Pathak. 126 mins. Cert: PG
Hindi cinema has
become as hung up on families as Hollywood now is on superheroes, which poses a
problem: while immensely relatable and profitable when done right, the formula
permits only finite variation, and may lead to projects that proceed from the
same idea. All is Well is this
summer’s second road movie to cram squabbling relatives into the back of a car:
that set-up ignited May’s low-key but transporting Amitabh Bachchan vehicle Piku, and now drives Umesh Shukla’s much
broader comedy-drama, which follows a similar narrative route with one erratic
hand on the wheel and another Bachchan travelling upfront.
Here, it’s junior
scion Abhishek playing Inder, a mopey rockstar recalled home from touring to
settle his irascible father’s accounts – and, inevitably, unresolved tensions.
Papaji (Rishi Kapoor) hoped his boy might someday take over the family bakery,
and rightly rues the missed opportunity: if Inder’s chapattis were as flat as
his love songs, he’d be set for life. More recently, he’s packed Inder’s
befuddled mother (Supriya Pathak) off to a home. Yet given 24 hours to assemble
the funds required to repay loan shark Chima (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub), dad and
lad are forced to grit teeth and fake an affection that – inevitably – becomes
the real deal.
Why, you ask, doesn’t
the vaunted rocker just write a cheque to settle the matter? Much torturous
exposition fills in this plothole – it’s inherited stubbornness, apparently –
while attempting to make disparate elements take. With his dandyish topcoat and
moustache, Ayyub is a colourful dash of cartoon villainy, but there’s a tonal
mismatch whenever Shukla frames him next to the confused mother. Also jostling
for attention is Inder’s childhood sweetheart Nimmi (Asin), although her
continued devotion seems downright peculiar upon sustained consideration of the
stolid Bachchan: the Noel he recalls is Edmonds, not Gallagher.
Once on the road, All is Well gains some energy, yet it’s
hardly subtle, and pretty episodic: reaching for loud, cuckoo sound effects
whenever a gag isn’t working, Shukla leaves us pottering around anonymously
dusty backroutes, awaiting the next diversion before the climactic declaration
that all is, indeed, well. In one such stop-off, Bachchan trips the light
fantastic with diner siren Sonakshi Sinha, but the number has as little bearing
on events as Kareena Kapoor’s guest slot in last week’s Brothers – and I’d like to believe that if a man were so lucky as
to dance with Ms. Sinha, it would alter the course of his existence forever.
Elsewhere, Shukla
veers between mild toilet humour (like Piku,
it’s a film compelled by old men’s ablutions) and low-octane stuntwork, but
there’s no real internal motor: the quieter character work of Piku and Dil Dhadakne Do is missing, or gets drowned out. Inder eventually
gathers that solving dad’s problems will also solve his own, yet that
realisation first requires us to navigate ninety minutes of tepid knockabout.
It passes relatively quickly, no more inane than, say, recent multiplex-filler Hot Pursuit – but you’d be foolhardy to
take that as a recommendation, let alone drive the whole family to see it.
That’s how these rifts start.
All is Well is now playing in cinemas nationwide.
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