MUMBAI: Some films one just goes to watch without expectations.
Same is the case with All Is Well despite being directed by Umesh Shukla, who earlier gave us OMG: Oh My God. This is because, if the script does not add up to much and the credits list actors who are not known to carry a film on their own shoulders, no director can work miracles.
The film promises to be at least a visual delight as it takes off in Bangkok but that is just a bait. It soon moves rock stock and barrel into the hinterlands of North India, probably Haryana or is it Punjab? Well, the language and the attires seem to be those of Punjabi / Sikh and so is the ambience. Soon, it stops mattering for, if the makers don’t know, how could we?
Abhishek Bachchan is a writer and composer of music who has been trying to get a break to cut an album in Bangkok. May be, Bangkok is where new talent in Hindi music are launched!?! Tiku Talsania seems to be the man who holds a monopoly in launching new talent. However, he does not invest; an aspirant has to finance his own album. That is where Abhishek falls short for he has no money.
Back home, Abhishek has parents, mother Supriya Pathak and father Rishi Kapoor. This is one messed up family suffering from total lack of communication despite being a family of three. Rishi has inherited a bakery from his father, which has a customer base of around four people. He is badly off, has no ambitions and gives vent to his frustration on his son and wife thus estranging Abhishek, who he asks to leave. Abhishek’s passion is his guitar and his music, which Rishi dislikes.
Abhishek has to raise money so that Tiku can launch him and that is when he gets a communication from his father’s lawyer that Abhishek needs to come to India and sign an agreement to sell off the bakery premises since his grandfather left it in the joint name with his father. Abhishek wants nothing of it but his friend convinces him that this probably is the money he was looking for his album.
Abhishek also has an admirer in Asin who loves him and wants to marry him. She is in a hurry to convince Abhishek because her father has already found a suitor for her back home. Both are on their way to India and end up taking the same flight. They also end up using the same cab (clichés never went out of fashion). Asin is glued to Abhishek, at times by her own devise, at others, by the writer’s plotting.
When Abhishek reaches home, he learns that he has been really fooled into coming by a goon, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayub, to whom Rishi owes a lot of money. The goon wants the bakery premises in lieu of his money. Soon, Abhishek also learns that there is not a single person in his town to whom Rishi does not owe money! The bickering between father and son resumes after a ten year break. Supriya has been conveniently put out of scene consigned as an Alzheimer affected patient, who is left to be a mute spectator to father and son’s verbal duals.
Here on, the makers seem to decide to take it as it comes with no particular sequence of events as father and son play hide and seek with Mohammed and his bunch of buffoons who pass off as his toughies. In between the mess, they realise that they actually love and care for each other. For whatever corny reason, Rishi had divorced Supriya so Abhishek decides to get them married again. Abhishek has also paid up Mohamed’s dues by selling his songs to another singer against his principles and wishes.
That done; it is now Rishi and company’s turn to get Abhishek and Asin together. For convenience sake, Asin’s suitor has decided to marry her cousin.
All Is Well is a poorly conceived, half-baked script. Substance is at premium here. The director is totally at sea doing a patch up job giving the film a last century B grade feel and the set designs making it only worse. Even regional films or limited budget small films have more finesse. Editing could have been better. The film has various singers giving voice to Abhishek or his none lip-sync number, which sounds rather odd. The only hummable song is Baaton ko teri…composed by Himmesh Reshamiya (the film has four composers besides having borrowed a number from Anand Milind’s score from Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak).
Performances are generally bad. Even Rishi does not bother to act. Abhishek and Asin both suffer from poorly etched characters. Supriya manages to look blank forgetting to act; Alzheimer makes a patient forget things, you know.
Talking of expectations, All Is Well is a let-down even for one with no expectations.
Producers: Bhushan Kumar, Kishan Kumar, Shyam Bajaj, Varun Bajaj
Director: Umesh Shukla
Cast: Rishi Kapoor, Supriya Pathak, Abhishek Bachchan, Asin, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayub and Sonakshi Sinha in an item number
