If geography was not your strong subject, you’d be excused for thinking that Dubai is a city in India. Everyone in Dubai, going by Ahmed Khan’s Fool and Final is Indian or Hindi-speaking — from the dons to the thieves to junk dealers and garage owners. A few Arabs are seen hanging around in the background like tourists. Dubai is also am amazingly cop-free city, because all sorts of hanky panky goes on from car-jacking to illegal betting on clandestine boxing matches, and no one bats an eyelid when furious chases go on in the middle of peak hour traffic.
If the whole film had been as loony and fast-paced as a couple of its action pieces, it might have been worth a watch, but for one with pretensions of being a comedy Fool and Final is a complete turkey.
Khan packs the film with stars but not one has a well-defined role or anything useful to do. They are all cast to type — Sunny Deol is the dhai kilo ka haath fighter, Shahid Kapoor is the cute romantic, Vivek Oberoi is the tapori, only Arbaaz Khan gets to play an offbeat character of a Russian don called Moscow Chikna. Paresh Rawal does his dim-witted Baburao act from Hera Pheri this time with a UP Bhaiya accent; Johny Lever is the spare tire and Jackie Shroff (Gunmaster G9!) not even that. There are two ‘heroines’ as well — Ayesha Takia and Sameera Reddy — not on screen long enough to qualify as decorative.
There is no plot to speak of, and the gags and ‘items’ lined up, though entertaining, sink like weighted anchors. The film either goes towards an India Colony in Dubai, were a garage owner (Om Puri) and wife (Sharmila Tagore) play benevolent elders or then at the boxing matches where gigantic and weird-looking blokes get beaten up or beat someone up. Once in a while there’s a song break and occasionally the director remembers that it all started with a diamond heist, so the blue glassy gem ought to be aired, lest it’s forgotten. If Khan had thrown out so many sub-plots then he should’ve had some control over the various strands. But the handling is slapdash. The stars may have taken on this film to enjoy a holiday in Dubai (though the India Colony was set in Film City), surely they weren’t expecting a comic masterpiece to emerge from this Snatch (by Guy Ritchie) rip-off.
Source by Uday Reddy
