Gulabo Sitabo Trailer Is  Disappointing

It is  here  at last. Shoojit Sircar’s  big-ticket Bachchan-Khurrana  starrer,  where the  trailer tells us  Khurrana  eventually gangs  up with archeologist Vijay Raaz  to  teach  the  old man a lesson. This is  the  gist  of  the  plot  as  projected   into  the  trailer  .Is  it interesting enough? No. Does it have  the potential  to grow  into something  interesting? Yes,  quite possibly.

After  Shoojit Sircar’s  Piku, Mr Bachchan once again   plays a  cantankerous  old man . In Piku  he had a ridiculous  pillow as a  prothetic paunch.  Here the  external  props  to make him look older,crankier and , errrr,  Islamic are   pretty  much  in the  mood of exaggerated drama that  the  whole presentation exudes.

 Khurrana is remarkably confident  taking on the mighty Bachchan.   In fact a day before the trailer launch the two actors  along with  Sircar  did a trailer introduction on video that was more  interesting than the trailer .It had Ayushman playing ‘the star’ on video-conferencing as Mr Ba  played the patient senior.Sircar just looked lost. Imagine, what one has to to make  the trailer  launch  look  interesting during lockdown…Sircar’s sullen  face  suggested.

 Throughout the campaign to promote  Gulabo Sitabo I suspect  the stress would be to show the co-actors squabbling. The mock-fight between  Ryan Reynolds  and  Hugh Jackman is interesting because  they what  us to know it’s a  charade. Mr B and Khurrana take  the fight  all too seriously.

There is an element  of  audacity to this conflict. Khurrana  so junior to the legendary Bachchan bold enough to  give the old man tit for tat.Wow, what  guts, man! Coming from  a gutsy actor this is  in character.At one  point  in  the trailer  Khurrana suggests that  Mr B adopt him to avoid  a  property  dispute. Mr B  heckles  the  junior actor out of  the room.

No doubt  Round 1  goes  to  Mr Bachchan. But what after that?  So far the  feature films released  on  the  OTT platform during  lockdown have been duds.Will Gulabo Sitabo reverse the  trend?Or is  it just one  big-sceen product better  off on  the  OTT platform?