Film: Bombay To Goa

Director: Raj Pendurkar

Producer: Humayu Rangilla

Cast: Sunil Pal, Raju Shrivastava, Ehsaan Qureshi, Tinu Anand, Vijay Raaz, Naveen Prabhakar, Rauf Lala, Asrani, Jagdeep, Paintal, Jr Mehmood, Dinesh Hingoo, Viju Khote, Birbal, Manorama, Pran, Manmouji, Deepak Shirke, Bharat Kapoor, Sudhir Pandey, Nafisa, Mac Mohan, Shakti Kapoor, Payal Desai, Aasif Sheikh, Sheila Sharma, Ranjeet, Raj Kanojia

Rating: 1/5

Thrown into a shallow story are tons of characters that have no depth whatsoever. That best describes Bombay To Goa. You are left neither laughing nor the least bit amused.

Bombay to Goa is the story is about two characters wanting to earn big. The very ambitious Lal (Sunil Pal) and Das (Vijay Raaz) begin their own business after Lal strikes a jackpot by winning Rs 2 lakhs. Soon they decide to float a travel agency and run a bus service from Bombay to Goa.

The bus is nothing more than trash on wheels and the passengers are the least bit happy. Through the crib filled journey, they find a character (Mac Mohan) who meets with an accident and before his demise, tells them of a treasure he hid in his earlier days. Soon each passenger of the bus is found running to lay their hands on the treasure. With too many hands and a little box of treasure, it is but obvious that each one tries to out smart the other.

To begin with, this film borrows generously from the 1963 classic; it’s a Mad Mad Mad World. While that film was fairly simple and the laughter came through the plot, in this one each stupid, pointless character is seen delivering jokes that generate not even the slightest bit of laughter. There are just too many characters doing too many things. Characters are introduced at the drop of a hat and for no rhyme or reason.

The story is headed nowhere and the end is the most expected one ever seen in Indian cinema. We’ve seen the same chase sequences in hundreds of the so called comedy films.

Even the characters produced are so thoroughly one dimensional and shallow, that one can’t but try to stop the tears that flow. Manufactured scenes, jokes and dialogues run through this movie constantly and there is no room for improvisations. The moment you realize this, the film from being a tad bit ok turns to being dreadful. The dialogues are aimed at generating laughs, but fail to generate any.

The only area where the film scores, is on the technical front. Making this film a remotely bearable task to watch is the camerawork and editing. The biggest plus in the film is the absence of dance numbers, thank God the film didn’t break out into songs and dream sequences.

Since the characters are all shallow and the jokes all manufactured, it is only obvious that the performance will be driven by it. The actors at a constant are battling for screen time.

This film neither has any joke filled moments to relish, nor does it have any performances worth remembering. It is nothing more than a tedious process to sit through it. Bombay to Goa is way off the route.