After the massive success of “Shikari” and “Nabab” in both Bangladesh and India, comes “Chalbaaz,” the third collaboration between Indian filmmaker Joydeep Mukherjee and Dhallywood superstar Shakib Khan. The romantic comedy swept the whole nation and ran ‘house-full’ for two straight weeks in more than 100 theatres across Bangladesh. Observing the hype over the film I was curious to watch the film as soon as I could. On its second week on a Wednesday afternoon I went to Mirpur’s Sony Cinema Hall along with a friend to see what the story was behind the massive success of the film.
The hall was full though it was a typical weekday afternoon show. Me and my friend wanted to jump right in to what the hype was all about. We were very disappointed to see that the film started off like any other stereotypical commercial Bangla film with a beautiful damsel in distress heroine Srijata (Subhasree Ganguly) who ditched her family and ran away from her own wedding to meet her boyfriend at London but before finding him she accidentally runs into Raja (Shakib Khan) instead. From there it is pretty simple, right? They will just fall in love, fight off a villain and do a few dance numbers and live happily ever after, right? Well that is where “Chalbaaz” did everything right because it is not your average B grade commercial Tollywood film in anyway though the premise makes it seem so. After their accidental crash at the airport it is a marathon of a very well written and directed romantic comedy with multiple storylines and timelines crashing with each other which is definitely worth your time and money.
In the film, Raja is no common idealistic hero like every other film whereas he is a “Chalbaaz” which roughly translates conman. In UK he does a day job as a chef at a catering service and in his spare time he cons people to earn big bucks.
On the other hand, Srijata is no damsel in distress either and meeting her boyfriend is not the only reason she fled her home to UK. Her lifelong dream was to complete her masters degree from Cambridge University. Though her Cambridge application was approved her family thought a West Bengal graduation was enough education for a girl. She thought fleeing to her boyfriend in London whom she met via Facebook was the only way she could pursue her dreams. Hence she fled India and went to London. Though later on she found out that her Facebook boyfriend was not what she expected.
The whole film makes you jump into common Bangla film problems such as a gang leader villain who is waiting for the hero back in India, the heroine in trouble with her elder brother for ditching her family and so on, yet each of the situation goes through a multi layered string of problems which you will not anticipate coming. Though the non-linear and multilayered storyline of the film will be throwing you off in places but the director Joydeep Mukherjee set them so well that it never gets confusing but rather enjoyable for the general audience.
The humour is not top notch but it is well written and entertaining enough to keep you in your seats for the three and a half hour runtime of the film. The unique plotline and situation of Raja and Srijata going bad to worse each second after they landed back to India also keep things interesting throughout the film.
The major attraction and biggest surprise to me was the film ends just 40 minutes after its intermission. The crowd gets buzzing on how the film gets to this conclusion without even reaching a climax. The director unraveled each layer of each storyline in that one sequence and cuts to London with the film ending. The audience were vstunned for a couple of seconds and then kept murmuring questions like “is this another flashback?” “this possibly can’t be true, could it?” “How did this happen out of nowhere?” “Isn’t this film supposed to be 3 hours long, how come this ended just after intermission?”
When the theatre crowd was ready for the credits to roll, to our surprise, the film cuts back to the climax sequence and starts from there and shows us how all these happened, which was very unconventional for a commercial Tollywood romcom, yet a treat to watch.
The technical aspects of the film also deserve credit. The film was well edited and the cinematographer did a good job, especially in the songs and action sequences.
The entertaining 152 minute package also points out social issues like millennials and their belief over relationships over social media and overestimating whatever they see on these sites, females being forced into marriage without their consent which kills their dreams to pursue higher education and so on.
“Chalbaaz” also stars Rajatava Dutta, Sagnik, Joydeep Mukherjee, Syed Hasan Imam, and many others.
Overall, the film is another successful venture of West Bengal in Bangladesh. It is yet another slap on the face of our film industry and a lesson on how Indian directors are using our Shakib Khan and creating super hit films in both Bengals.
The Indian film has been imported to Bangladesh by NU Traders, under the South Asian Free Trade Area (Safta) agreement and got its theatrical release in more than 100 theatres across Bangladesh. The two-week long box office success of another Indian film in 100 theatres of our region clearly diminishes the same old debate that theatre audience are dying in Bangladesh. It is high time that our film industry should promote and finance young and talented filmmakers of our region who can also make blockbuster hits like this. The market is there. If the industry and administration can provide enough opportunity and reduce piracy the audience will do the rest to revive our dying film industry.
Siam Raihan is a film editor and a sub-editor at Dhaka Tribune’s Showtime Department.
