Movie Review: All The Best - Fun Begins

Rohit Shetty has tried to rework his magic of Golmal and Golmal Returns with this Ajay Devgn (yeah that's how he spells his last name nowadays) starrer slapstick comedy - All The Best: Fun Begins. It is a clean family entertainer mainly targeted at the masses. Working with a Rs. 40 crore budget, Rohit has successfully created an entertaining movie for Diwali. Though weak on the story (and logic), the film is pure entertainment and worthy of a family outing on this festive occasion.

All The Best: Fun Begins is an Indianized adaptation of Neil and Caroline Schaffner's play Right Bed, Wrong Husband. The film is produced by Ajay Devgn, and it stars Bipasha Basu, Sanjay Dutt, Fardeen Khan, Mugdha Godse and Ajay himself. It is a situational comedy at its core, but it does rely on slapstick routines to keep the audience laughing. You can check out the trailer here.

Life becomes challenging for Veer (Fardeen Khan) and Prem (Ajay Devgn) when Veer's brother Dharam (Sanjay Dutt) pays an unexpected visit to Veer's place. In order to have his allowance increased, young bachelor Veer had written to his pocket-money-sourced brother that he is married. Time does not give an opportunity and Dharam's unpredicted stopover creates inescapable circumstances where Prem's wife Jhanvi (Bipasha Basu) is mistaken for Veer's wife and Veer's girlfriend Vidya (Mugdha Godse) for Prem's wife. Apparently Veer is also qualified to be in the hate list of Vidya's father. Veer and Prem start juggling between the prolonging debt payment to a local don and appeasing Dharam about their false marital status.

Even with a slightly complex plot, Rohit has managed to sprinkle in enough one-liners and gags to make it one of the more entertaining comedies of the year. The movie does lack performers with good comedic timing although Sanjay Dutt is good in that respect. A few sequences involving Sanjay Dutt, Ajay Devgn and Johnny Lever are very good. The bigger problem is that the movie tries to showcase a large group of characters and sometimes ends up annoying the audience. Editing is loose and the movie runs for two and half hours which is a bit too long. The action scenes are well executed. Art direction is dismal at best. Pritam's music is good, though I am not sure if any of it was copied from somewhere else (like in the past).

Story development happens early in the movie and the first half of the movie is pure madness. However, the second half is always trying to play catch up. The movie slows down comparatively in the second half and becomes annoying at times. Absurdity keeps on increasing and some people may find the climax to be bit of a let down. The entire ride is chaotic, over-written and at times over-acted.

Ajay Devgn undoubtedly has the major role and he is really good in the comic scenes. Sanjay Dutt and Johnny Lever are fun too. Fardeen Khan again shows improvement in this film over his earlier ones and has given a good performance. Both females - Bipasha Basu and Mugdha Godse - have nothing to do in the movie.

Verdict: All The Best is a good family entertainer and will be a fun watch on this Diwali. Don't go in expecting a great story and you will be fine. It won't earn any awards but will definitely make you laugh spontaneously at times. It is definitely a better watch this weekend when compared to Blue and Main Aurr Mrs Khanna.