Coolie No 1 Movie Review: During the climax of the naya version of Coolie No 1, Varun Dhawan tells Johnny Lever to close his mouth otherwise someone will get Corona. This 'joke' epitomes this sorry excuse of a film, considering it is pretty tasteless in the present scenario, and also logic-less since I couldn't see a single person in the film with a mask! I know I am nitpicking over a silly gag, but seeing how terrible the rest of David Dhawan's new movie is, the Corona joke would be a nice reminder that we didn't risk the virus to watch Coolie No 1 in theatres! Coolie No 1 Song Husnn Hai Suhaana: Varun Dhawan and Sara Ali Khan Burn The Dance Floor With Their Killer Moves In This New Version!

David Dhawan, who recently started this hobby of remaking his old hits with son Varun, decides to take a beloved '90s Govinda film this time, that SHOULD have been left as it is. The original Coolie No 1, despite the lead actor's excellent comic timing and its chartbuster soundtrack, was no classic. In 2020, the movie feels dated - Coolie No 1 was made in an era where heroines were okay if their lovers were lying and tricking them, as long as it was in the name of Love. These days, this concept would have been a two-parter episode for Savdhaan India.

The idea to remake this film was such a bad idea that not even Govinda or Karishma Kapoor bothered to make a cameo in the new version. At least we had two Salman Khan's in the Judwaa remake.

Watch The Trailer:

To make matters worse, the new Coolie No 1 hardly feels like an update. Except that the Hindu Hoshiyar Chand and his family is now the Christian Rozario (Paresh Rawal) and his family from Goa. The rest of the plot is identical - after being insulted by a snobbish Rozario, marriage broker Pundit (Jaaved Jaaferi, stuck in a thankless role) decides to cut him down short as revenge. For that he chooses Coolie Raju (Varun Dhawan) to act like a rich heir named Kunwar Mahendra Pratap Singh and woo Rozario's elder daughter Sarah (Sara Ali Khan).

Even quicker than Varun agreeing to be part of his father's another remake, Sarah falls for Raju/Kunwar and they are soon married off. For a film that is supposed to be a modern update, none of Rozario's bothered to Google this dubious character. Or at least check him out on Facebook. Even when everyone seems to be carrying a smartphone. Bhai, kya usmein xVideos dekh rahe ho sab?

But I am getting way ahead of my annoyance about how dated the whole setting is. This is a film that still thinks having a character with a speech defect is funny. Or a thick South Indian accent should eke out laughs. Or fat-shaming is so 'in'! Or putting men in drag is just so LOL! This ain't Comedy Nights With Kapil Sharma, bro!

Maybe I should ponder over the makers' decision of choosing to remake this film. Since both versions of Coolie No 1 is made by the same man, the idea could be to iron out the flaws in the original. Even in that case, 2020's Coolie No 1 hardly offers any justification for its existence. Govinda Dances on The Original Husn Hai Suhana From Coolie No 1 On His Birthday And We Can Only Say 'Old Will Always Be Gold'.

Varun Dhawan is a good actor, has great comic timing and dances well - all these qualities found ample in Govinda in his heydays, and the latter had more sass. So no update here. Even the Mithun Chakraborty impressions that Varun does in the film were done in a better way this very year by Rajkummar Rao in Ludo.

Stepping into Karishma Kapoor's shoes, Sara Ali Khan is... well, if you thought she was bad in Love Aaj Kal, wait till you check out her performance in Coolie No 1. This is a terrible performance from the young (and still promising) actress, as Sara struggles to keep up with her funnier co-stars with her expressions being all over the place. She definitely needs to do something about her choice of scripts too.

The rest of the cast, including the experienced Paresh Rawal, Johnny Lever and co, play upto to the buffoonery that the original film had. Only Rawal manages to make some sort on impression.

Speaking about the music, the songs are just recreated versions of the chartbusters from the original. The writing feels even more illogical and humourless.

Even in technical front, Coolie No 1 is just dated. The transition cuts from certain scenes make you wonder if you missed something in between.

The VFX is bad - you can totally see the green screens in many scenes. The highlight is the sequence where Raju saves a child playing with a Captain America toy (chalo a nice Easter Egg there... Varun had dubbed for Cap in the Hindi version of Civil War) right in the middle of the railway tracks (?), as he jumps right in front of a very obvio green-screened train to save that dumb kid. After Kalank's infamous bull scene, Varun seems be a magnet of WTF scenes with terrible VFX! Coolie No 1: Varun Dhawan Saving a Kid From a Fake Train in This WTF Scene Leaves Fans in Splits; Reminds Us of Kalank’s Bull-Fight Scene.

So after bearing more than two hours of negligible humour, the question still persists in my mind - 'why the need to remake this film?' When we could have easily watched the original on Star Gold.

And I am pretty sure, the answer by the Dhawan's would be 'Tujhe mirchi lagi toh main kya karun!'

Yay!

- Varun Trying His Best To Make Something Out of This Farce!

Nay!

- Groans, groans and more groans than laughs here!

Final Thoughts

David Dhawan needs to stop ruining his own movies and start making something original with his son, where the latter doesn't have to ape Govinda or Salman Khan. Coolie No 1 remake is simply a terrible exercise in wringing tired laughs out of a dated comedy, which, in retrospect, can sum up how disastrous this whole year was for Hindi cinema. Coolie No 1 is streaming on Amazon Prime.

Rating:1.0

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Dec 25, 2020 01:19 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).