Movie Review: 'Mr Joe B Carvalho' is a piece of insipid buffoonery

Star Cast: Arshad Warsi, Soha Ali Khan, Jaaved Jaaferi, Himani Shivpuri, Vijay Raaj, Ranjeet, Karishma Kotak

Direction: Samir Tewari 

Story: Mahesh Ramchandani

Rating: 1/2

When American actor comedian, WC Fields, propounded the famous quote that "Comedy is a serious business. A serious business with only one purpose- to make people laugh", probably he intended to communicate it to the following generations, that you really need to be zany enough to make someone laugh by your buffoonery.

After saying a hearty good-bye to 2013 (of course because of Mr Perfectionist's 'Dhoom 3') now Bollywood has once again geared up to take on the 2014. But it looks like, by now it has become a trend in Bollywood (except a few years when movies like Agneepath rocked the first quarter) to have a lean business in the first few months of the year.

Anyhow, marking the onset of movie release calendar of 2014, cine venture of Samir Tewari, "Mr Joe B Carvalho" featuring Arshad Warsi, Soha Ali Khan and Jaaved Jaaferi made it to cineplexes today. Because of a less glittery star-cast and a somewhat moderate promotion, the movie could not fetch a good foot-fall at its opening, and opened with an average occupancy of around 8 percent at the multiplexes.

After witnessing some of the low budget cine flicks like, "Jolly LLB", "Mere Dad Ki Maruti" and "Fukrey", in 2013 belonging to the ilk of comedy genre, it was expected that despite being a low budget affair "Mr Joe B Carvalho" may emerge as a surprise package of 2014. But unfortunately nothing of that sort happens from beginning till culmination of the movie.

Although, with a somewhat suggestive title (Mr Joe B Carvalo), the movie somewhere down the consciousness makes you feel that it is going to be a joyride full of toilet-humor and double entendre, but smashing and thrashing all your expectations "Mr Joe B Carvalho" turns out to be a wishy-washy affair with some extremely bland dialogues, pathetic jokes and one liners. 

Well, as far as giving a sneak peek of "Mr Joe B Carvalho" is concerned, then literally it is one of the most tedious task. And tedious because, it is a bit difficult to present a poppycock affair in a discernible manner. Anyhow, as soon as the tangled narrative of "Mr Joe B Carvalho" unfurls it showcases the story of a Mama's boy kind of a detective, Joe B Carvaloh (Arshad Warsi), who is assigned with a task of foiling the marriage plans of a run-away couple by girl's father, Khuranaa (Shakti Kapoor).

Whereas on the flip side of the tale is, Joe's ex girlfriend (who is now a cop) Shantipriya Phadnis (Soha Ali Khan) who is delegated with a task of nabbing an international assassin, Carlos (Jaaved Jaafery) who is roped in by General Kopa Kabana (Snahal Dhabi) to kill his (Kopa Kabana's) ex, Gehna (Geeta Basra). But this entire mess gets even messier when, Shantipriya mistakes, Joe for Carlos and from there takes off a tiring cine jaunt, knitted around the core of "comedy of error".

In the past we have seen so many movies circumscribed around the conceptual core of "comedy of error" do well at BO. But unfortunately "Mr Joe B Carvalho" is an exception to the rule. Although the script writer, Mahesh Ramchandani has tried his level best to concoct the narration of "Mr Joe B Carvalho" with the spices like "double entendre", "comedy of error" and a a bit of "Chaplinistic humor" too. But regrettably this entire exercise of, Mahesh went futile with the end product emerging as bland and unchewable chow. From the very first frame entire premise of "Mr Joe B Carvalho", starts looking like a directionless yarn made just with an intention of testing the tolerance of the viewers. 

Although without a firm foundation, it is somewhat asinine to hope for a brawny structure, but in cine world we have seen number of times that, despite a flimsy script a sinewy screenplay has done wonders for some of the movies. But no such miracle happens in the case of "Mr Joe B Carvalho" which further submerges into the trench of absurdity due to its patchy and indiscernible screenplay.

Coming to the direction and other relevant (or rather irrelevant features), which were assembled together by, Samir Tewari in order to dish out this torturous cine fable. So starting with the man in director's chair, with "Mr Joe B Carvalho" being his first cine outing, Samir certainly deserves to be given a benefit of doubt, but at the same time it is hard to believe that a man who is piloting a cine venture can be so oblivion about quality of entertainment that needs to be offered to the audience in the form of a movie. If we go by the contribution (if any) which Samir would have have made as director, then it looks too paltry. Besides that even efforts of editing and cinematographic team comprising of Dharmendra Sharma and Aseem Bajaj have looked so halfhearted, that you nowhere feel like devoting even minutest part of your attention to the onscreen proceedings. 

Quite in accordance with over all appeal of the movie, even the music of "Mr Joe B Carvahlo" will disappoints you till limits.

Well, before coming to the performances it is pertinent to mention here that, through this grueling cine experiment, makers have thoroughly ruined the performing potential of each and every protagonist who had been part of it. After seeing Arshad excelling in diverse range of roles, in "Mr Joe B Carvalho" it was to excruciating to see this otherwise talented actor wasting his acting adeptness. But another fact which can't be overlooked about Arshad's performances is that his was the only performance which looked honest, but because of highly ill-defined character even this attempt of Arshad could not emerge as the grace saving feature of the movie. 

On the other hand another character which was inaptly used by the makers was that of Jaaved, and probably it was because of the the oblivion of director about amply utilizing the potential of his protagonists that talent like Jaaved seemed to be totally wasted through out movie. And as far as "Dabangani" avatar of Soha is concerned then even this gorgeous dame belonging to the royal lineage and a family of actors seemed to be completely ill-informed about the personality traits which she was expected to flaunt while performing her character.

Even the rest of the cast comprising of versatile talents like Himani Shivpuri, Vijay Raaj, Ranjeet and Shakti Kapoor looked somewhere stuck into the swamp of under utilization. 

Keeping in view the fact that "Mr Joe B Carvalho" didn't have even a single coefficient of entertainment in the offering, all that can be said about its BO potential is that, at best it may manage to survive for a week on the big screen. And besides, if it succeeds in recovering its cost of production then it is going to be an achievement in itself for this otherwise bland cine account.

To sum up, decorated with some very talented actors, "Mr Joe B Carvalho" could have been an above average cine yarn, if its maker would have deployed even an iota of intelligence and cinematic sense. So after seeing so many "not so worthy" components assembled together, I am going ahead with just a half star for this insipid piece of buffoonery called "Mr Joe B Carvalho".