![]() ![]() With: Abhishek Bachchan, Rishi Kapoor, Asin, Supriya Pathak. That’s how these rifts start.ĭir: Umesh Shukla. It passes relatively quickly, no more inane than, say, recent multiplex-filler Hot Pursuit – but you’d be foolhardy to take that as a recommendation, let alone drive the whole family to see it. Inder eventually gathers that solving dad’s problems will also solve his own, yet that realisation first requires us to navigate 90 minutes of tepid knockabout. In one such stop-off, Bachchan trips the light fantastic with diner siren Sonakshi Sinha, but the number has as little bearing on events as Kareena Kapoor’s guest slot in last week’s Brothers – and I’d like to believe that if a man were so lucky as to dance with Ms Sinha, it would alter the course of his existence forever.Įlsewhere, Shukla veers between mild toilet humour (like Piku, it’s a film compelled by old men’s ablutions) and low-octane stuntwork, but there’s no real internal motor: the quieter character work of Piku and Dil Dhadakne Do is missing, or gets drowned out. Once on the road, All is Well gains some energy, yet it’s hardly subtle, and pretty episodic: reaching for loud, cuckoo sound effects whenever a gag isn’t working, Shukla leaves us pottering around anonymously dusty backroutes, awaiting the next diversion before the climactic declaration that all is, indeed, well. ![]() Also jostling for attention is Inder’s childhood sweetheart Nimmi (Asin), although her continued devotion seems downright peculiar upon sustained consideration of the stolid Bachchan: the Noel he recalls is Edmonds, not Gallagher. With his dandyish topcoat and moustache, Ayyub is a colourful dash of cartoon villainy, but there’s a tonal mismatch whenever Shukla frames him next to the confused mother. Why, you ask, doesn’t the vaunted rocker just write a cheque to settle the matter? Much torturous exposition fills in this plothole – it’s inherited stubbornness, apparently – while attempting to make disparate elements take. Yet given 24 hours to assemble the funds required to repay loan shark Chima (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub), dad and lad are forced to grit teeth and fake an affection that – inevitably – becomes the real deal. More recently, he’s packed Inder’s befuddled mother (Supriya Pathak) off to a home. Papaji (Rishi Kapoor) hoped his boy might someday take over the family bakery, and rightly rues the missed opportunity: if Inder’s chapattis were as flat as his love songs, he’d be set for life. Here, it’s junior scion Abhishek playing Inder, a mopey rockstar recalled home from touring to settle his irascible father’s accounts – and, inevitably, unresolved tensions. ![]() ![]() All is Well is this summer’s second road movie to cram squabbling relatives into the back of a car: that set-up ignited May’s low-key but transporting Amitabh Bachchan vehicle Piku, and now drives Umesh Shukla’s much broader comedy-drama, which follows a similar narrative route with one erratic hand on the wheel and another Bachchan travelling upfront. Hindi cinema has become as hung up on families as Hollywood now is on superheroes, which poses a problem: while immensely relatable and profitable when done right, the formula permits only finite variation, and may lead to projects that proceed from the same idea. ![]()
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