Many a times, it’s just the opening 10 minutes of a film and one clearly gets the idea about how tough the next two hours are going to be sitting in the theatre. Still the hope refuses to die and the viewers seriously keep waiting for something better to be there soon in the remaining time.
Unfortunately this hope doesn’t work in case of ALL IS WELL, since the film neither delivers in the beginning, nor has something entertaining to offer in the mid as well as the end, surprisingly coming from the director of widely acclaimed, meaningful venture OH MY GOD. In fact one repeatedly remembers the title of his last film in the literal sense (with an exclamation mark) watching even an actor like Rishi Kapoor hamming on the screen due to many poorly written sequences with lots of weird dialogues.
To be specific, the very first thing that causes the big disappointment is the faulty use of Punjabi language and many characters in the script speaking with an awfully artificial Punjabi accent not suiting just anybody. Moreover this is again a comic project from few of those ‘extremely creative minds’ who still consider Punjabis as only funny people knowing nothing other than laughing, eating and dancing. Secondly the father, mother, son and even the girlfriend turn out to be ‘a bunch of people’ far away from reality making no connection whatsoever with the viewers. And thirdly its the wrong casting of Mohammad Zeeshan Ayub as the fumbling don who miserably fails in his sincere attempt to somehow keep it ‘hilarious’ right till his final scene.
In actual terms, it’s the inferior writing, flat jokes, poor one-liners, hamming acts and unentertaining execution with nothing engaging happening throughout its two hours of duration that work as the main culprits here. Plus the below average soundtrack and a feeble try to cover more than one genres further damage the film brutally right from the word ‘go’.
For instance it begins focusing on a struggler musician (with a disturbed childhood) looking for a brake, who doesn’t believe in the institution of marriage and then goes on to become a crude chase comedy, a road movie, a love-marriage saga and a family drama altogether giving an important social message in its concluding scenes. But above all it’s the badly written script that simply doesn’t let the film convey anything before or after the intermission apart from few emotional sequences in its climax that unfortunately appear when the game has already been lost.
Umesh Shukla, the director of OMG is nowhere visible in the entire film and it’s a pity to see actors such as Rishi Kapoor, Supriya Pathak and Mohammad Zeeshan Ayub coming up with all mediocre performances due to the reckless writing. Asin remains completely wasted in a silly role and Sonakshi once again proves her ‘repetitive talent’ in a forcibly inserted item number that’s good for nothing.
A routine camerawork, unnoticeable background score, shabby art direction and below average soundtrack become the other weak departments of ALL IS WELL. Plus the makers also dare to recreate the soothing love song ‘Aye Mere Humsafar’ from QSQT that actually doesn’t even deserve a mention here. But at the same time, I wonder why QSQT has suddenly become the hot-favourite, as one of its song was recently also used in the much appreciated MASAAN.
Coming to the lead star of the film Abhishek Bachchan, the actor always tries to perform in a decent manner to the best of his ability as per the given role. But honestly ALL IS WELL once again makes me think that, Why many of the awful films always manage to fall in the lap of Abhishek Bachchan only repeatedly?
May be its because of his choice of roles or the luck factor refusing to favour since long, Abhishek certainly needs to find his lost form at the earliest, living to the reputation once formed with YUVA and GURU.
In all, after some terribly unbearable 100 minutes, ALL IS WELL faintly manages to convey a valuable message in its climax reminding everyone to essentially take good care of their ageing parents providing them all the love and warmth in their final decades when they actually need it the most.
However, despite the precious message, I still cannot recommend this mess unexpectedly created by the man behind OH MY GOD.
Ratings : 1 / 5 (Just for the invaluable message given to the present and future generations)
