Mr White Mr Black Review

It's tough to make a comedy. It's even tougher to make people laugh. With Mr. White Mr. Black you realize that director Deepak Shivdasani's intentions may be sincere, to make a full-on entertainer, but the film fails to transport you to ha-ha-land. It takes off with gusto, but the vehicle runs out of gas suddenly, leaving you stranded midway.

Mr. White Mr. Black borrows heavily from the tried and tested stuff. There's a bit of Gopi Kishan [Suniel Shetty's double role won praise then]. Plus, the usual masala that worked at a point of time. However, despite its uninspiring content, there's no denying that a few scenes do make you flex your facial muscles, even though the jokes are quite childish. Unfortunately, things take a complete U-turn in the second hour, with this comedy proving more of a tragedy for the hapless viewer.

In short, Mr. White Mr. Black is a half-baked fare that tries too hard to entertain, but fails.

Gopi [Suniel Shetty], a simpleton, arrives in Goa from Hoshiarpur. His mission - to hand over a piece of land to his childhood friend Kishen [Arshad Warsi]. Kishen swindles people with a little help from his accomplice [Atul Kale], to earn enough money to educate his sibling Divya [Mahima Mehta], who's studying in London. Kishen, however, has managed to hide his profession from Anuradha [Rashmi Nigam] by cooking up an alibi of a twin brother, Hari, who's the bad guy.

Kishen avoids Gopi like he's bad news. He's not going to give up his flourishing business and travel to Hoshiarpur just to take possession of a measly piece of land. Meanwhile, diamonds worth Rs. 25 crores have been stolen by three girls, who are now holed up in Goa. Kishen traces the three girls and succeeds in robbing the diamonds. But the diamonds actually belong to a don, Laadla [Ashish Vidyarti], who has also reached Goa.

That Deepak Shivdasani has an eye for style is visible at the very outset, when the three girls perform a heist in broad daylight. The film actually starts off with a bang! A few portions thereafter are equally interesting, but the writing suddenly deviates into unwanted territories in the second hour.

Take, for instance, Suniel's character. He wants Arshad to return to Hoshiarpur to fulfill a promise, but the reasons don't come across strongly. Note another point. When the three girls realize that the diamonds have been robbed from their locker and they begin a search for Arshad, the story suddenly shifts to various sub-plots: The love interest, followed by the mandatory songs, another 15-20 minutes are devoted to Arshad's sister's marriage and much later, the original owner of the resorts [Sadashiv Amrapurkar] re-appears on the scene. The three girls eventually show up in the climax. Truly, the second half is chaotic!

Deepak Shivdasani shows a flair for comic fares, but is letdown by a hotchpotch screenplay. Music is equally ineffective. 'Samundar' and Gopi Kishan are average compositions, but the remaining tracks are lackluster. Thomas Xavier's cinematography, surprisingly, lacks sheen.

Suniel Shetty repeats his act without any variation. Ditto for Arshad, who is livewire in some portions only. Amongst ladies, Anishka Khosla [resembles Preity Zinta from some angles] is an okay actress. But what is the talented Sandhya Mridul doing in a film like this? Rashmi Nigam looks pretty, that's it! Sharat Saxena is the only actor who stands out. Ashish Vidyarthi is loud. Shehzad Khan is funny. Vrajesh Hirjee and Upasana Singh's track is half-baked. Manoj Joshi deserved a better role. Sadashiv Amrapurkar and Atul Kale are passable.

On the whole, Mr. White Mr. Black promises only a few moments of laughter, which isn't enough. At the box-office, an also-ran!