'The Big Bull'
Cast: Abhishek. A. Bachchan, Ileana D'Cruz, Nikita Dutta, Soham Shah, Ram Kapoor, Supriya Pathak, Saurabh Shukla and Mahesh Manjrekar
Director: Kookie Gulati
Duration: Two hours 35 minutes
Where to Watch?: Disney+ Hotstar
Critics' Rating: 2.5/5
'The Big Bull' Story:
Inspired by events from the late 80s and early 90s that shook the country's financial fabric, the biggest Indian hustle is here.
'The Big Bull' Review:
The Big Bull was announced to release on Disney+ Hotstar back in 2020 when a few films were opting for OTT outing than the big screen owing to the coronavirus pandemic. Little did they know that Hansal Mehta will create a storm with Pratik Gandhi and make the masses fall in love with Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story. The pressure on the film was instantly created by the viewers as Scam 1992 created a benchmark altogether.
What new can one expect from a 155 mins movie that people got to see in 2020 via 10 episodes? Well, nothing much. However much one tries, a story that was witnessed by many a few months ago, will keep flashing in the minds of the viewers and they will end up comparing Scam 1992 with The Big Bull.
The Big Bull is a commercialised attempt at telling the story of Harshad Mehta which takes the fast local train to get to the point early on.
The film starts with a grand entry (not really) of Abhishek A Bachchan as Hemant Shah that creates little impact. Then it rewinds to him living in a chawl as a salaried man who has a cutesy love story with a girl named Priya Shah (Nikita Dutta). Amid all that, Hemant enters the world of the stock market in an attempt to save his brother Viren Shah (Sohum Shah) from goons as he takes a loan from them. In no time, Hemant mints money by becoming a financial broker and living life out of the stock market profits. All this happens in a whirlwind that it gives little time to the viewers to catch up on the rags to riches storyline.
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Abhishek as Hemant Shah based on Harshad Mehta's life makes a good effort to get into the skin of the character and it comes across well. The good thing about Abhishek is that if given a character sketch, the actor nails the part effortlessly. He created a benchmark with Guru, and with The Big Bull, AB is once again playing a Gujarati man and glimpses of Gurukant Desai is visible in his role as Hemant Shah.
The actor brings his best to the table but loose ends in the screenplay don't add up overall. A major drawback of the film is its dialogues which lacks punch.
Besides this, the supporting cast lends little support to the main character in the film. Sohum Shah as Viren has shown his best with Tumbbad but fails to create a mark like in The Big Bull. The same goes for Ileana D'Cruz who plays Meera Rao, a journalist, in this film. She narrates the story of Hemant Shah in the film but is lacklustre.
Popular character artists like Supriya Pathak and Saurabh Shukla are good in their parts. While Nikita Dutta is zeroed only as a pretty face in the movie.
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One more thing about Scam 1992 that stayed with the people is the title track. But with The Big Bull, CarryMinati and other artists are zestless. Although it's claimed to be 'inspired by true events', after watching Scam 1992, fictionalised names of the characters make the film more insignificant.
It will be tough to accept The Big Bull but 'try it yourself' might not hurt your eyes, or it might.
'The Big Bull' Verdict:
The Big Bull is like a raging bull in a china shop, read a careless attempt of recreating Harshad Mehta story on-screen for the second time.
