Rohit Shetty is clear from the word go: Cirkus is not for the critics and reviewers. It’s not for us to judge how well it’s made or how polished it is. All he wants to do is entertain the audience but even as an audience, I felt cheated. Based on William Shakespeare’s play The Comedy of Errors, Rohit Shetty not only offers a double dose of Ranveer Singh but also gives us a double expresso shot of Varun Sharma.
We’ve seen versions of the play adapted on the big screen in the past, Angoor being my favourite version of it. After watching Cirkus, I can safely say that the Sanjeev Kumar and Deven Verma version remains on my top spot. Cirkus begins with a lesson on surrogacy and bloodline but struggles to walk the Cirkus rope until the end. Set between the 1940s to 1960s, the film starts off with both the twin brothers purposely separated in order to prove that upbringing matters more than blood. Heavyweight dialogues are used with a touch of vintage melodrama. (Nirupa Roy enters the chat).
Growing up, one set of Ranveer and Varun make Cirkus their home while the other set is raised in the luxury of Bangalore. Both the sets are named Roy and Joy to add more confusion and comedy. Unaware of their twisted fate, their paths begin to align when the Bangalore set of Roy and Joy head to Ooty. During their one-day never-ending trip, Roy and Joy land in supposedly hysterical situations.
Rohit Shetty pulled out his iconic guns for Cirkus — the stellar comical cast, the punchlines, and even drew a connection with the Golmaal series, but the script got lost in the magic box. The first half of the film feels like a traffic-jammed trip to Ooty — the view is great but the people (or story in this case) refuse to move forward. There is only one comedy scene that lights up everyone in the first half, giving us false hopes that Rohit is finally coming into form but it falls flat soon after.
While it was a struggle staying awake through the first half, I finally found some motivation to keep my eyes open when Deepika and Ranveer came on screen with their Current Laga Re performance. But the dip in pace, story, and comedy after the performance was unmissable.
Cirkus is its strongest in the climax bit wherein the puzzle of the twins is being solved. Rohit wraps the film as soon as possible, as though he wanted to leave for Panvel.
The biggest disappointment of the film is the lead twins — Ranveer and Varun. Rohit toned down Ranveer and Varun’s energies — two stars who have shown that they can perform comedy if need be — to two serious, dramatic characters, sucking out the fun of the film.
While Varun managed to get some comedy scenes, Ranveer’s comical scenes were heavily supported by impressive actors such as Siddhartha Jadhav and Sanjay Mishra. The scenes involving Sidhartha and Sanjay crack you up the most, with the actors almost stealing the spotlight from Ranveer in a few scenes. But they are also limited to minimal scenes, making me miss them when they weren’t on-screen. Rohit also uses songs like Bewafa, Badan Pe Sitare and Aa Jaane Jaa to tickle the funny bone, which works in his favour.
Rohit also seems to have heavily borrowed from the film Hungama for one of the scenes but doesn’t crack you up the way Hungama still does. Pooja Hegde and Jacqueline Fernandez are wasted in the film and so are several veteran actors such as Ashwini Kalsekar, Tiku Talsania, and Sulabha Arya, all of whom try to take the film to a new height but fall due to the weak script.
Will I watch Cirkus again? Unlike previous Rohit Shetty movies, I might just pass on this one, even on television.
