One, Two, Three'
Runtime: 137min 37secsTagline: Same Names. Dangerous Games.
Language: Hindi (with English subtitles)
Written and Directed by: Ashwini Dheer
Plot Outline:
Diamonds worth ten crores are stolen from a dangerous Don. The diamonds accidentally fall in the hands of young love birds - Chandu (Upen Patel) and Chandni (Tanisha Mukherjee), who quickly hide them in a car. The Don and his idiotic henchmen are desperately hunting for the diamonds while hot headed police office Mayavati Chautala (Neetu Chandra) is on the prowl looking for offenders of any kind. Enter Laxmi Narayan ♯1 (Tusshar Kapoor). He's from a mafia family and his mother prays that with a few murders under his belt, he will be settled for life. After screwing up badly in his early attempts, he's got a final chance to redeem himself as a murderer. He comes to hotel Blue Diamond because he's taken a supari (contract killing) to bump off the Don.
Enter Laxmi Narayan ♯2 (Suniel Shetty). He's an MBA from Darjeeling and lives his professional life by sucking up to his boss, taking everything he is told as hard facts. He is sent to the Hotel Blue Diamond to collect a new car for his boss from Laila (Sameera Reddy). Then we have Laxmi Narayan ♯3 (Paresh Rawal), a hawker who has made so much money selling underwear on the footpath that he has set up a lingerie factory for his son. His son has sent him to the Hotel Blue Diamond to collect some lingerie samples from upcoming designer Jiya (Esha Deol).
Three Laxmi Narayans at the hotel waiting for messages at the hotel reception desk. The scene is set, let the mayhem begin ...
Overall Impressions:
As expected, it's a switch your brain off sort-of a film. It mimics the likes of Priyadarshan comedies of the past few years. With the given scene you would expect each Laxmi Narayan to get mixed up in numerous hilarious scenarios wherever deemed possible with a lingerie dealer, a rookie contract killer & a straight-laced yuppie, but how long can this go on for? Strangely enough it doesn't get old within the first hour of it.
The second hour, however loses momentum & the half hour after that, grinds it to a much anticipated halt. The end seems so sudden that you wonder if they just ran out of time to film and decided to call it a day, or was it that they realised that it was time to call it quits based on duration. When it does end, you're surprised, but not all that disappointed that it;s done with.
This is not to say it doesn't entertain at all. It does, but in drips & drabs. The dialogue is witty throughout, with punchline after punchline leaving you smirking at the least, but overall the film isn't any greater than the sum of such parts. It's the lack of concrete screenplay & lax editing that lets this film down. Shortening the duration certainly would have helped. Losing one or two of the songs may have aided this, but even so, it's the lack of a central plot that is cripples it most.
The performances were pretty good considering the scope each character had, but Suniel Shetty really stood out as exceptional. Following this Tusshar Kapoor was pretty cool as the rookie gangster. Sporting a similar look as he did in Shootout at Lokhandwala in which he played a proper gangster, the contrast is striking. The surprise here was Paresh Rawal, usually he has a knack for stealing the show when it comes to these slap-stick affairs, but seemed on auto-pilot this time round.
Women-wise, it's probably Sameera Reddy that steals the show from Esha Deol, but this is more by the on-screen time rather than performance. Neither had the scope to work wonders. Upen Patel and Tanisha had so little screen-time to they were almost not there, though it has to be said Tanisha is looking hotter and hotter, release by release ;-) Keep an eye out for that one. She's going places.
How far can a case of mistaken identity entertain, how about throwing not 1, not 2, but 3 in the mix. Well, the answer's here .. about an hour & a half. I can see this working a lot better with Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell and Owen Wilson as 90 minute flick actually, alas here, it drags.
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