Bob Biswas

The film would have fallen flat if not for the performances. Chitrangada Singh doesn’t put a foot wrong as a dutiful wife who finds happiness again after eight long years. Though she’s apprehensive about her husband’s amnesia, she’s hopeful that her love will help overcome it. She and Abhishek gel together so well that they don’t feel like a screen couple working together for the first time. Newcomer Samara Tijori, who happens to be Deepak Tijori’s daughter, too makes a confident debut. She’s your typical teenager struggling with the generation gap on one hand and the stress of studies on the other. Abhishek Bachchan has been experimenting off-late playing immersive characters and his risks have reaped rich dividends. He hasn’t aimed to eradicate the memory of Saswata Chatterjee but gives his own spin to the much-loved character.

In this film, directed by Ghosh’s daughter Diya Annapurna, the most interesting character trophy goes to an elderly, twinkling man who presides over a pharmacy full of lotions and potions. He is the bridge between good and evil, even as he has his own strong rules about right and wrong. Every time the film stops off with him, and his encounters with Bob, it brightens. Every time Bachchan gets a killing flare in his eyes, he makes us look. But parts of the plot are predictable and flat. Kahaani successfully unsettled us, and the ending was a humdinger. Here, we kind of, sort of, have an inkling. There’s a nice little nod in the end to the original, but one big reveal is telegraphed from the start for alert viewers. Overall, the attempt at a creating interest and suspense around the life of a contract killer has some moments. Bachchan continues to prove that he can get away from wanting to be a hero to his advantage.

And yet, even with this potholed screenplay, as the film progresses, it begins to find its balance and every now and then it has a rhythm. So much so that Bob Biswas has the audacity to keep us waiting, almost enjoying our impatience as it delays gratification. And when the moment comes, it’s sudden, cool and worth the wait. Written by Sujoy Ghosh and Raj Vasant, Bob Biswas sparkles and smiles when it’s preparing for a kill, and for that it always makes a pit stop at a chemist shop. That’s one of the two things that anchor Bob Biswas — Paran Bandopadhyay the chemist with his amiable personality and soothing Bengali, and the other is gorgeous Chitrangada. In her lovely cotton sarees and frilly nighties, she roots the character of Bob by providing hearth and home.