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Star cast: Kay Kay Menon, Rajpal Yadav, Riya Sen, Shweta Tiwari and Rukhsar
Plot: Kay Kay gets a bell boy’s job in a five-star hotel while his roommate, Rajpal, works as a waiter in a ladies beer bar. Turns out that both, the hotel and the bar, are hotbeds of illegal activities.
What’s Good: Performances of the actors.
What’s Bad: Muisc; the script.
Verdict: BENNY AND BABLOO is a poor show.
Loo break: Anytime!
Chamunda Films’ Benny And Babloo (UA) is the story of two friends, Benny (Kay Kay Menon) and Babloo (Rajpal Yadav). They are room-mates who work as waiters in a restaurant which closes down for good. Benny then gets the job of a bell boy in a five-star hotel while Babloo becomes a waiter in a ladies bar.
Benny keeps ridiculing Babloo for working in a ladies bar. But he also realises that his five-star hotel is as much a place of illegal activities as Babloo’s bar, what with drugs being freely available in the hotel which is a hotbed for prostitution too. Benny finds himself helpless in curbing this racket. Rather, he gets trapped in a prostitution racket himself in a bid to save his job and also involves his friend, Babloo, in it. The two land in jail alongwith some girls of Babloo’s beer bar.
The court drama that follows lays bare the similarity between the beer bars and the five-star hotels and, in fact, emphasises that the latter are worse than the former. It also takes up for the girls who used to work as dancers in beer bars before they were shut down.
Yunus Sajawal’s story tries to pack in too much and is also too melodramatic. Likening a beer bar to a five-star hotel may be good for a sermon but to make it the material for a film is not exciting because not many among the general public except, perhaps, the dancers in beer bars rendered jobless after they shut down would sympathise with them or their condition. The whole track of the beer bar girls having hearts of gold has been included with the solitary aim of pleading their case, but it hardly strikes a chord in the audience’s hearts. Rather than a free-flowing script, Sajawal’s screenplay makes it a forced and measured script.
Kay Kay Menon does very well and acts with effortless ease. Rajpal Yadav is good and goes through his role with understanding. Riya Sen has a brief role and she is quite effective in it. Rukhsar leaves a mark with a promising performance. Shweta Tiwari is natural. Natasha acts truly well. Kiran Jhanjani is nice. Aasif Shaikh shines. Kishori Shahane-Vij, Hiten Paintal, Hussain, Richa Chaddha and Maushumi Udeshi lend fine support. The others are alright.
Yunus Sajawal’s direction is okay but his script and narration make it seem like a poor cousin of Chandni Bar, which has made its appearance after ages. Amjad-Nadeem’s music is weak and Shabbir Ahmed’s lyrics are no better. Camerawork and other technical values are okay.
On the whole, Benny And Babloo may be an issue-based film but one that will go unnoticed, partly due to poor promotion and partly because it doesn’t leave any impact whatsoever.
