From the looks of it, ‘All Is Well’ seems a film with a lot of potential. A comedy-drama set around a dysfunctional family on a road trip, the film boasts of a credible cast of good and above-average actors ( you can slot the actors in these two categories as per your wish) , some catchy songs and a director whose previous film is considered one of the most clever, sharp satires in recent times. Yet, director Umesh Shukla’s latest film dives into the deepest of the illogical sea and never manages to float.
The film has Abhishek Bachchan playing a reluctant modern day Shravan Kumar which inconsistent hairdos. No seriously, Bachchan’s hairdo fluctuates from unkempt longish to Mohawk style from scene to scene. The concept of continuity was politely pushed under the doormat when the film was being filmed. Anyway, coming back to the story of ‘All Is Well’, the film opens with Inder (Bachchan) singing Hindi rock ballads on the streets of Bangkok. A phone call from back home from a local goon Cheema (Mohd Zeeshan Ayyub ) makes him come back to Kasual, India and face his estranged father, played by Rishi Kapoor. The duo has to repay a hefty loan together that Kapoor had taken from Cheema or else forgo their ancestral property and the bakery that the family runs. The father-son set of on a journey reluctantly together, first to fetch the mother (Supriya Pathak Kapoor) and then to arrange for the lump some money.
They also have Nimmi, Inder’s ex girlfriend (Asin) stuck to them like a leech. Nimmi suffers from low self respect and clearly does not understand that her boyfriend is not interested to get married to her. She keeps insisting throughout the journey that them traveling together is a sign from up above about their eternal love. All this while the unresponsive Bachchan looks elsewhere and seems disinterested about Nimmi.
There are so many unexplained things in the film that it leaves you baffled as to why would actors like Rishi Kapoor, Supriya Pathak, Mohd Zeeshan Ayyub and for that matter Abhishek Bachchan agree to something so senseless. Shoddy editing, poor screenplay and weak storyline don’t really help to keep this sinking ship afloat. And there are major flaws in continuity shots. The film apparently took two years to complete and it is evident that the end product was put together hastily. The hairstyle of Abhishek Bachchan keeps fluctuating from time to time. So does Asin’s hair in a particular train sequence. The film can easily be summarized as a montage of all the hairstyles Bachchan has sported in the past two years.
Much like ‘OMG: Oh My God’, ‘All Is Well’ also has a social message for its viewers but somehow amidst a chaotic story, it gets diluted. The film also wastes good actors like Pathak and Ayyub who end up getting limited in caricature roles. In fact, Pathak has almost no dialogue in the film. Ayyub sports a hideous wig and spurts clichéd jokes as the comic-villain of the story. The leading men, Abhishek Bachchan and Rishi Kapoor try to put in their best but during the two hour long movie, they too seem disinterested after a point. Perhaps they realized that the story was heading nowhere.
Too many clichés, too many tried and tested jokes on the Sikh community (which were not remotely funny), lack of continuity, badly edited scenes; there is so much that is NOT well in ‘All Is Well’. Watch it only if you have nothing else to do this weekend.
Rating: 1.5/5
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