Film: "Zorawar" (Punjabi); Director: Vinnil Markan; Cast: Yo Yo Honey Singh, Gurbani Judge, Parul Gulati, Achint Kaur, Mukul Dev, Pavan Malhotra; Rating: *
Sometimes larger-than-life can be smaller than credibility. Casting singers as actors has always been problematic. Just because one can sing, it doesn't mean one can act as well.
Rapper Yo Yo Honey Singh has earlier made futile attempts to prove himself an actor in eminently forgettable films.
In "Zorawar", Honey Singh plays a government security agent. He is introduced to us speeding on a bike, chasing terrorists while his senior orders him to wait for "back up".
In a sequence straight out of an Arnold Schwarzenegger spoof (here, treated with heroic earnestness), Honey Singh takes hold of a heavy vehicle carrying a bunch of eve-teasing goons and turns it around.
This propensity is genealogical in Zorawar's family. In a furiously fumigated flashback, we see his screen dad (Mukul Dev) stop a speeding car with his bare hands.
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Lifting cars, flirting with women, breaking into clumsily composed rap numbers, saving a bus-load of children from a terror attack, are just some of Zorawar's talents.
More than all the above, Zorawar is a certifiable mama's boy. When mommy dearest Achint Kaur sobs about Zorawar's missing dad in Canada, Zorawar, like any devoted son, sets off for Canada to get him back.
The rest of the film seems blatantly inspired by "Aa Ab Laut Chalen", which was directed by Rishi Kapoor.
Would Honey Singh make another attempt to act after this? More to the point, does Zorawar find his dad? Does this film find a centre to the constantly fluctuating plotline? And who among the two leading ladies gets Honey Singh at the end?
Ah, choices choices!
The narrative's mood swings are worthy of a shrink. We see Honey Singh talking serious about country, filial duties, love and other related topics, when suddenly he swerves into a comic mode mid-sentence with the background score doing a suitable flip-flop.
It's almost like Honey Singh is telling us, "Hey, all this tripe about me saving the country and looking for my father... Don't take it seriously, guys."
We promise you, we won't. In return you've to promise never to face the camera again.
It's one thing to watch Diljit Dosanjh hog the limelight in "Ambarsariya". But to watch Honey Singh do the same is a sobering experience.
--IANS
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