Bobby Jasoos

Of Kishmish in Bilkish and Abba Khadoos

What is it all about?

Sweet and charming in Salwaar-Kameez and Hyderabadi Tameez - Reliance Entertainment and Born Free Entertainment's Bobby Jasoos' starring Vidya Balan (the current laaj of female samaj in Bollywood) is strangely weaved in the ages old forgotten B-Town Muslim social tapestry, to tell a fairy tale of triumph of a small town woman, with threads of romance and comedy making it an attempt to cash on clichéd melodrama with a jasoosi' bahana.

Built as another milestone for Vidya Balan (12 different avatars) Bobby Jasoos' will hit quite a few returns mostly coming from Muslim dominated pockets and her hardcore fans who will just love her again. While the rest will find it somewhat difficult to crest this so called detective flick with fabulous returns only on the basis of Vidya Balan's heroics as an actress.

The Story

Sanyukta Chawla pens this detective story which is more of a small town woman's glory, with not entirely consistent Charminar (read structure) of melodrama, romance, comedy and spy drama. Set in Hyderabad, Bilqis Ahmed (Vidya Balan), aka Bobby, dreams of becoming a private detective one day. But her conservative Abba (Rajendra Gupta) is against her eldest daughter roaming with binoculars in the city.

Bilqis is desperate to be a detective and one fine day she gets an assignment with a fat paycheck from Anees Khan (Kiran Kumar) to find missing girls from the city. With not much clues Bobby in her salwaar-kameez and Hyderabadi tameez gets her detective act going, making Anees Khan happy with the outcome and giving her more. But poor Bilqis has to go through a frowning Abba, loving Ammi (Supriya Pathak), outspoken Kahla (Tanvi Azmi) and a dilruba dost - a popular TV show host Tasawur (Ali Fazal), an unwanted marriage proposal to walk her desired walk of fame as a detective and more as a worthy' daughter of her Abba huzoor. Suroor, yeah, but not entirely.

What to look out for?

'Bobby Jasoos' is a fine example of how to take full advantage of talents and appeal of actress like Vidya Balan to overcome character and plot issues to make an erstwhile negligible movie watchable. The idea is to attract family audience and Samar Shaikh succeeds though not overwhelmingly but passably.

Kudos to Vidya Balan for making Bilqis believable to the audience! She makes her a winner by bringing in full force of her dazzling personality as an actor charming all the way right from the first frame till the end making this Bilqis a kishmish of a character.

Well supported by Ali Fazal (the love interest), Supriya Pathak, Tanvi Azmi, Kiran Kumar and Rajendra Gupta.

Technicalities are fine. Tariq Umar Khan production design and Sheetal Sharma's costumes deserve special mention.

What not?

Strangely the melodrama in this detective hungama strikes the most while the humour is half baked and the romance unwanted. The script gets convenient at will. Songs are a hurdle. The plot lacks the required zing.

Conclusion: Having its share of problems but still Bobby Jasoos' is watchable thanks to Vidya Balan's heroics as an actress.

Rating ***