Sanchita
After giving a solid performance in Breathe 2, Abhishek Bachchan is back with yet another meaty titular role in ‘Bob Biswas’.
This crime thriller is a spin-off of Sujoy Ghosh’s iconic Kahaani character Bob Biswas. It marks the directorial debut of Sujoy’s daughter Diya Annapurna Ghosh.
Director: Diya Annapurna Ghosh
Run Time: 2 hours 11 mins
Rating: 3/5
Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Chitrangda Singh, Paran Bandopadhyay, Tina Desai
Storyline:
Now, who can forget the original Bob Biswas – played by Saswata Chatterjee. A seemingly mundane insurance agent doubling as a cold-blooded hitman. He had quite the killer catchphrase – “Nomoshkar, Bob Biswas. Ek Minute.” (Hi, I am Bob Biswas. Just a minute.) And that METRO Scene. *Chills*
But Abhishek Bachchan’s portrayal of Bob Biswas gets a clean slate quite literally as we delve into the contract killer’s past. We begin with an interesting premise in the spin-off – Bob Biswas (Abhishek) wakes from an 8-year long coma suffering from a memory loss, completely oblivious to his heinous past crimes.
He doesn’t remember his beautiful wife Mary (played by the sultry Chitrangada Singh) or his two children – lil son Benny and teenage STEP-daughter Mini. Yup, you can feel Bob did some shady shit to get the 1st husband out of the way.
While our clueless protagonist is still trying to piece together his previous life, his bosses show up and try to revive his contract killing career. While his first murder is shaky and ‘quite amusing’, Bob takes to the hitman life like a fish to water. It’s practically muscle memory for him at this point.
But as the body count gets higher…our poor Bob starts having quite the existential crisis. The cold-blooded killer seems to have thawed and developed a conscience and can be seen internally wrestling with his work ethics – is he killing good people or bad people? And what if his forgotten past inevitably catches up to him?
In the meanwhile, his step-daughter has turned into a pill-popper, lured by the new ‘Blue’ drug in the market which is turning students into addicts under the guise of improving concentration. Bob gets caught in this cross-fire of drug dealing and corrupt policemen with their own agenda. And yes, his karma does come back to him as he starts remembering his horrifying past actions.
We do have some interesting characters like Kali Da (Paran Bandopadhyay) a wise, old pharmacy-owner/arms supplier who maintains that even crime has its rules. Bob’s conversations with him lend an introspective touch to the film amidst the ongoing bloodbath.
Tina Desai has a brief role as Inspector Indira Verma who’s piped in to investigate Bob’s murders and the drug cartel.
What We Think? Less Thrills, More Feels
Now, we know, comparison to the original is inevitable. While Bob Biswas’s backstory was quite interesting, there was very little nail-biting action, and no stand-out plot twists as one would expect from a Kahaani spin-off.
Bob Biswas might prove a tad bit underwhelming as it takes too long to set up and is quite the slowburn.
Saswata Chatterjee’s cold, calculating, efficient killer has been made more humane in the spin-off. Somewhere… in trying to etch out Bob Biswas’s character, dig deeper into his motivations and conscience, we lose out on seeing the ‘sinister’ edge in Abhishek’s act.
Feels ki chakkar mai thode thrills kam pad gaye!
Hit Or Miss?
That being said, Bob Biswas definitely makes for an intriguing watch. Abhishek Bachchan has given a solid HIT performance. Try to watch with an open mind without constantly comparing to Kahaani.
