Bank Chor Review: A drab circus of laughs and thrills

This brand of funny by the virtue of I-know-I-cracked-a-bad-joke doesn't quite tickle, says Sukanya Verma.

The title alludes to an expletive in the tradition of Delhi Belly's DK Bose.

It's not mere wordplay, but also metaphorical of the deception Bank Chor has on its mind.

Too bad this flat farce doesn't have the wits to pull it off.

Directed by Bumpy for Y-Films, an offshoot of Yash Raj Films, this low-budget, low-rent comedy thriller starts out as a bumbling bank heist where everyone's a conscious idiot -- the victimiser, the victim.

Except this brand of funny by the virtue of I-know-I-cracked-a-bad-joke doesn't quite tickle.

There are ample opportunities after its revolver-totting troika of thieves (Ritesh Deshmukh, Vikram Thapa and Bhuvan Arora) announces their intention to rob a bank but quickly reveal their ineptitude at the job, especially since one of the hostages happen to be rapper Baba Sehgal.

The only genuine haha moment is a running Mumbai versus Delhi dispute between the Faridabad and Ghaziabad residing members of Ritesh's gang.

Thapa, Arora nail the harmless dimwits even as their leader, adept as he is at playing these roguish goofballs, infuses whim in gags that are too blah to take off.

Outside the bank though, cops and CBI led by Vivek Oberoi looking like a 21st century musketeer, twiddle their fingers and bark 'No comments' to the media, basically one journalist (Rhea Chakraborty), while the loony robbers drag on the circus.

One would still give this frivolity a chance if the makers had the sense to utilise Baba's presence for campy laughs, but what ensues is disappointingly shoddy.

As is its lame attempt to see a joke in chef Harpal Singh Sokhi's random presence, Oberoi's name being Amjad Khan or a Tagore-chanting journo asserting her ArGo (Arnab Goswami) fangirlism.

After a wobbly stab at humour, Bank Chor brusquely shifts gears in its second half as if it was possessed by another genre, what's the name -- damage control?

The mood gets dark, the pace picks up, consciences kick in, masks drop off, threats are ping-ponged and the twists begin to fall in line.

Of course, it's all supremely contrived, and, frankly, quite absurd.

Even if one overlooks at the glaring loopholes in its tonal switch and professed slyness, it's frustrating how much Bank Chor delays its denouement because nobody cried wolf.