God Tussi Great Ho( God You'r Great)
God is definitely great, because without the support and blessing of the Almighty, such films could never have seen the light of day. God Tussi Great Ho is a film which epitomizes everything what is wrong with Bollywood today - a weak screenplay, sloppy direction, overacting and gratifying inflated egos in the name of ‘satisfying the audience.' There is nothing in this film (creation) to talk about, because even a look at its cardboard cut out in the theatre could give you signs about what to expect - but one didn’t know that things would turn out to be so ugly. God Tussi Great Ho belongs to the special group of Bollywood films, which are mainly running on the faces of their stars, in this case Salman Khan to be precise, but the circus around the ‘star’ has been running around for such a long time that the relation with the art form is lost, and there is almost no relation with the content either - hence the dialogues, set-pieces and gags, which are an integral part in building the blocks of narrative rhythm, do not exist, due to which there is no building of characterization, emotions or development of pace. This is a trajectory which has become a norm of the film industry today. Usually a comic setup would be thrown in at various junctures in films to cover the loop-holes in other aspects. However, today the audience is getting hungry for good film in all genres per se, and God Tussi Great Ho is definitely not one of them.
How long can Salman Khan continue being himself irrespective of the genre; whether, comedy, tragedy, drama anything he won't move an inch without having similar expression, gestures and his ‘terminator’ style of walking - which not only makes us alienated from a Bollywood film which is supposed to ‘immerse’ us in the emotions and characters, rather empathize. This film is no different, he plays a television journalist in search for success in general- life, love, career, but nothing at all seems to go his way. One day, God himself decides to grant him his personal wish of fulfilling whatever he pleases for ten days, and he goes about satisfying his personal angst and also pleasing others. Everything which happens in terms of ‘plot development’ in between those lines is best not to have seen, especially if one has seen the original English version (Bruce Almighty). There are side characters of the mother, father, an ugly sister, a house maid, a beggar and a lottery ticket seller thrown in to fill the gaps in the narrative, but each one of the above characters brings down any form of development and also adds to the pain of slowing down the film and making it completely trashy.
Rumy Jafrey believed in the fact that it’s a crime to bore his audience, and he believed in the ideology of completely entertaining the audience. But, sadly, this film does not entertain in any departments of filmmaking: sound, camera, narrative, direction, acting. Everything is actually redundant. The film on the narrative level completely believes in plagiarism of the sweetest kind- taking the basic plot of Bruce Almighty and filling in with Indian kitsch and humor, that too is so stale that one is unable to comprehend why the film even got made. Rumy Jafrey, who has penned down films such as Hero No. 1, Bade Miyan Chhote Miyan, Dulhan Hum Le Jaayenge, Mujhe Kuch Kehna Hai and Mujhse Shaadi Karogi, should go back to writing films than directing. After all, what does he actually bring to the platter - absolutely nothing? His writing is plagiarized, the entire mise-en-scene does not work to bring out anything fresh - like the shot of Salman Khan entering his room in a high angle shot - that has become a ‘cliché’ of the film industry, and speaks volume regarding the development of any form of director’s syntax. The individuality of the director is nonexistent, even as a writer it does not bring out any form of humour which we could associate with his other works. Interestingly, the art direction is done by one of the finest Art Director in the country, Nitin Chandrakant Desai whose sheer brilliance in bringing out details in his craft can be seen in some of the music sequences, but the décor does not hold any form of attachment to the characters. This is a major reason why most Bollywood films of any genre feels like just existing on a studio stage, and do not translate into any reflection to our everyday association and desires.
The film is supposed be seen as a complete entertainer - in simple ‘Bollywood’ logic where one has to sit and enjoy and not use their heads. But even entertainers follow certain flow of logic, that in turn, gives the film its cohesiveness and makes an entertainer purely enjoyable fan fare. Sadly, this is not the case for this film, even the ‘music’ which springs in oddly is so banal and placid that it makes you wonder regarding its sheer presence. Moreover, the film could have existed without the presence of the songs as it adds absolutely nothing to the film. Similarly the ‘clichéd’ use of editing technique used in the dream sequences of Salman Khan highlights the sad plight not only of the director but the overall industry that has taken the task of corrupting any forms of development in the aesthetics of cinema and taking the easy route. I mean just having a new Panavision camera, some DI effects, VFX, and a new Smoke system does not bring about development in any form of visual language.
A movie, which seems so discrete on all planes of the cinematic code and grammar, will not translate anything when perceived by the audience, except perhaps a chuckle or two. But should one invest so much money for such sheer trash. Where the mise-en-scene works like that of a factory where goals are to produce mass products with similar design and aesthetics. No matter who is handling the machine or what new recipe comes up, things would just be the same, but the fundamental choice is still in our hands of choosing the product, and in this case, it should be avoided at all cost.
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