'Aa Gaya Hero': Goodbye Govinda, once it was fun (Review)

Film: "Aa Gaya Hero"; Director: Dipankar Senapati; Cast: Govinda, Ashutosh Rana, Murali Sharma, Makarand Deshpande, Chandrachur Singh, Richa Sharma and Poonam Pandey; Rating: 0

Dear Govinda,

I went through the singular experience of watching your latest film touted as your comeback, but severely savaged by critics as being too "1990s" to be taken seriously now. In case you didn't notice, it is 2017. But when critics say "Aa Gaya Hero" is too 1990s, I don't know what they mean -- because even in the 1990s, your films made by your friends like Pahlaj Nihalani and David Dhawan, looked like they came 30 years too late.

But anyway, those films back then like "Shola Aur Shabnam" and "Hero No 1" were fun, if you liked that sort of a thing -- thrusting pelvis, double meaning comebacks... Now the pelvis doesn't thrust. It thirsts.

There was the inimitable and remarkably witty Kader Khan for company back then. Alas, Kader Khan is no more part of your journey... The wit is gone.

In a scene in "Aa Gaya Hero" (Here Comes The Hero???!!!), I was aghast to see the theatre stalwart Makarand Deshpande saying something as sleazy as -- and I translate loosely -- "When you grow older, what goes up in your younger days, stays down."

I am pretty sure that was Makarand, though I could be hallucinating. I also think I saw Poonam Pandey in one shot. I have no idea what she was doing with you, or why she was doing what she was doing/not doing. This film had that effect on me. It is like a lengthy, disjointed, incoherent, tawdry and tacky homage to the honest-cops sagas of the 1970s, executed by someone high on dope and low on hope.

"Aa Gaya Hero" could pass off as a spoof on Prakash Mehra's "Zanjeer" and Govind Nihalani's "Ardh Satya", if only the director (where did you find him???) had the sense of humour to carry off a satirical look at the khakhi genre.

You know, how "Deadpool" spoofs the superhero films? The only entity "Aa Gaya Hero" ends up ridiculing is you, Govinda -- once a star now reduced to a pale shadow of what you once used to be.

The swagger of "Sarkaye lo khatiya" is replaced by a grotesque parody of the funny-entertaining hero who once was King. Who is this impersonator on screen? And what is he doing in this pathetic patchwork quilt of a product, parody that parodies the parodic Govinda film of the 1990s, with gaping holes and ongoing continuity lapses.

Clearly, the editor has used a butcher's knife on the footage, not knowing what to cut because it was all so messy.

Where is the real Govinda? Why has he allowed this charlatan to take over? If I was you, Govinda, I would slap a defamation suit against the people responsible for this hideous travesty.

Nobody must do this to Govinda. Not even Govinda.

--IANS

skj/rb/vt