Debutant Abhijit Mahesh’s film simply outlines comedic moments but never dares dig deep into them. The result is a generic entertainer.
It’s hard to pinpoint where exactly Abhijit Mahesh’s Bachelor Party falters as a film. A bird’s eye view of things tells you that it has the workings of a comedy-drama that tips a hat to the glorious era of ’80s and ’90s ticklers. There’s the central character who represents the very irony of life — Diganth plays Santhosh Manchale, a man who has almost everything to his name except santhosha (satisfaction) itself. He is the proverbial hapless man stuck in a loveless marriage but the humour lies in just how ridiculous things are.
Santhosh has been married for six years but at this point, he isn’t sure if he loves or fears her more. The wife’s tyranny, as it were, sees no end and he feels so stifled in his head that we often see him dreaming about that great confrontation (which ends with a ‘slap’, a weird obsession of this film). On top of that, he is in debt and the deserving promotion at work, too, eludes him because his boss hands it off to a female colleague (reasons being self-explanatory?). And yet, Santhosh doesn’t have it in him to speak up. If he were a comic book character, you would probably see a ‘brain bubble’ opening up every now and then to communicate his concealed thoughts.
So, what writer-director Abhijit Mahesh interestingly does at this emotional (yet comical) crutch point is he brings in the only solution that Santhosh needs. Nothing works for the man — he even enrols for an expensive quack seminar to convert his marriage into a “happy marriage”, courtesy of Mr. Lobo Griffin (Pawan Kumar) — and something radical is definitely in order. Enter Madhav (Yogesh), aka Maddy, that ghost from the past whom our protagonist must avoid but is still lured to because this new man just knows how to be happy. As his childhood friend, Maddy has often told Santhosh that he must grab happiness from life and not wait for it, so, when the two reunite at another friend’s bachelor party, someone’s life is about to change.
Where is the inventiveness?
So far, so good? Well, yes and no. The problem with Bachelor Party is it is one of those films that never know when to get going. In other words, it’s a film that is so smitten by its premise that it ends up offering a few scenes too many to drive the message home. How long does it take to tell us that Santhosh is stuck in a rut? A scene, or two, or even three maybe? But here, we get a whole load of contrivances that just don’t contribute anything to the story progression.
What was the whole point behind that bizarre seminar featuring Pawan Kumar (that tiny Johnny Depp bit is hilarious, granted)? Why is it that almost every scene involving Siri Ravikumar’s character tells us the same thing over and over again? And why are Santhosh’s problems so generic, that they seem to be borrowed from a WhatsApp forward? Sure, some of the jokes do land well but you know deep inside, as a viewer, that the comedy emerges from your own desire to laugh and not because the film is essentially evoking it in you.
At its heart, Bachelor Party is an old-school comedy that draws binaries with its characters — the husband is the ‘poor fellow’ and the wife is almost cartoonishly evil — and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. The issue lies in the fact that the film doesn’t attempt to subvert our expectations from this template and put its own spin on it. Despite the setup and the promise, Bachelor Party is not original or inventive enough.
Mild spoilers ahead...
Let’s take this one particular scenario, for instance: Maddy’s influence on Santhosh is a strong one and this becomes more evident at the bachelor party, when the latter momentarily finds that spot of bravado within him. One thing leads to another and the boys, along with a special third character, land up in Bangkok of all places. The Hangover 2 inspiration is in your face but, again, that really doesn’t matter because even at this point, the film has every chance to become its own. Maddy and Santhosh have no recollection of how the night unfolded beyond a point but to put things in perspective, the film presents a small, semi-whimsical sequence to reveal how the two, and their new partner-in-crime, set out on the journey.
Now, a better film would perhaps have generated great humour in this bit and wouldn’t have simply told us that the trio has reached Bangkok because of a few too many drinks. Remember that police station sequence in The Hangover, wherein a cop offers kids to taze the three friends? I felt Bachelor Party required that kind of mad detailing but the film restricts itself only to outlining funny moments and never digging deep into them. If Maddy has been in jail until the previous night, how did he manage to get on board an aircraft? Maybe there’s a hilarious sequence somewhere here? Similarly, the portions in Thailand are rendered bland because the narrative is too busy dispensing age-old gags that are mildly amusing at best.
An opportunity squandered?
In this vein, Bachelor Party also suffers from not fully fleshing out its main characters or making them resonate with us. The Santhosh and Maddy dynamic, for example, required a lot more agency and despite the silliness of it all, the narrative needed us to tether us emotionally to their friendship. The character of Maddy seems almost tailor-made for Yogi who runs home with it, but the writing just doesn’t use the vibrancy of his character to its fullest potential. Siri Ravikumar, as the wife Sandhya, is meant to play a particular kind of role but she is forced to look and sound excruciatingly the same throughout the film. Achyuth Kumar as the senior frolicker brings his A-game but the film doesn’t offer him much to play with.
The same could be said about how Balaji Manohar and Prakash Thuminad’s characters are dealt with. The two arrive in the plot at a rather important stage and even offer a glimmer of hope as to how the narrative could progress. However, the film starts to meander once again and all we get from this ensemble is a few chuckles that are born out of inconsequential sequences. Achara Kirk, the popular YouTube character, is completely wasted in her role and so is Shine Shetty, the man behind the bachelor party.
As you walk out of the cinema hall, it’s possible that Bachelor Party will seem like a missed opportunity. The film, as already pointed out, had the blueprint of a solid entertainer but it doesn’t rise above conventions and even squanders a few exciting opportunities. The main shortcoming, so to speak, would be that director Abhijit Mahesh doesn’t imbue his film with a sense of his own quirks or worldview but expects a certain ‘memory’ of comedy to work instead. A film like Hostel Hudugaru Bekagiddare comes to mind as a result, because there, the filmmaker at the helm did not shy away from revealing his authentic voice. And more importantly, that film is self-aware and invokes a comedic sensibility that’s highly original.
