Bahut Hua Sammaan Movie Review: An interesting cocktail of comedy and reality

STORY: Two struggling engineering students, Bony (Raghav Juyal) and Fundoo (Abhishek Chauhan), are tired of being called failures and want to do something big with their lives. Do they have a plan to become success stories or does life have something else in store for them?REVIEW: ‘Bahut Hua Sammaan’ revolves around the students of Uttar Bharat University of Varanasi, Bony and Fundoo in particular, who have flunked in their final year. They get frustrated with the fact that their juniors are getting jobs through campus placement while they struggle to even graduate. Pretty soon their lives take a drastic turn when they meet maverick Baba Bakchod (Sanjay Mishra), who sets a plan in motion to earn some quick bucks by robbing the university’s bank lockers. Will this robbery helped them redeem themselves and lead successful lives?In no time, it becomes evident that Baba Bakchod planned this heist to pocket a very precious possession—the Kohinoor. However, it’s not just him who has his eyes set on the Kohinoor but there are other dangerous people involved as well—notorious Guruji aka Anand Bairagi Maharaj (Dibyendu Bhattacharya), corrupt Union Minister Ajay Singh Parmar (Punkaj Kalraa) and his ruthless assassin, who is also an ex-commando, Lovely Singh (Ram Kapoor). That’s not all, small-time thugs Raju (Bhoopesh Kumar Singh) and Bhola (Sharat Sonu) also try to get their hands on the loot. All in all, things get messier when police inspector, Bobby Tiwari (Nidhi Singh), is roped in to solve the impending case and all the commotion surrounding the heist. Through ‘Bahut Hua Sammaan’, director Ashish R. Shukla sends out a strong message—loud and clear—we should always be inquisitive and keep questioning the functioning of the government and not just be blind follower of anyone in power. Emphasising on the saying, “Revolution is not a two hours film, it’s a constant force necessary for democracy,” this political satire is off to a rocky start but manages to lure us in with the unfolding of an interesting chain of events. But all that changes when too many sub plots are planted at regular intervals, making the screenplay go haphazard beyond a point of return. Overall, it has all the ingredients needed to cook up a funny, socially-relevant entertainer stance a consistently gripping story. The writers, Avinash Singh and Vijay Narayan Verma, have penned down a story that is relatable, especially given the current political scenario of the country. And special mention goes to the witty dialogues in local UP dialect that enhances the humour factor in the film. The use of 80’s Hindi numbers like ‘Dhanno Ki Aankhon Mein’ adds a sense of nostalgia to the film. Watch out for the climax, which is, surprisingly, the highlight of the movie.Coming to the performances, Sanjay Mishra is the star of ‘Bahut Hua Sammaan’ as Baba Bakchod: he is funny and entertaining at the same time. Mishra single-handedly shoulders the burden of taking a narrative forward. Raghav Juyal and Abhishek Chauhan have done a commendable job playing two lost young boys from Varanasi. Both the actors pull off convincing performances as Bony and Fundoo respectively. Ram Kapoor looks deadly as the cold-blooded assassin Lovely. As the hard-nosed police officer Bobby Tiwari, Nidhi Singh renders an outstanding performance that proves to be one of the plus points of this social commentary. Her rapport with her over-enthusiastic on-screen husband Namit Das, who wants to start a family, ups the hilarious quotient of the story. In a nutshell, ‘Bahut Hua Sammaan’ starts off as a goofy comedy but later turns into a conversation about the ongoing socio-economic and political situation of the country that is laced with humour. The film has its heart in the right place, but, sadly execution falters after a point.