Remember Amar Akbar Anthony, Herapheri, Do Aur Do Paanch, Naseeb, Shaan or any of the pure masala films churned out by our dream merchants in the 1970s and 1980s? Yashraj Films’ latest release, Bunty aur Babli, directed by Shaad Ali, is a tribute to that popular genre of yore that defied logic or realism and gave us pure mindless entertainment. This style of filmmaking is blended with the genre of caper comedies from Hollywood that depict characters on the run, with slivers of Bonnie And Clyde and dollops of Catch Me If You Can thrown in for good measure. Don’t look for anything meaningful in this film – suspend all disbelief, sit back and enjoy the ride.

‘Bunty’ (Abhishekh Bachchan) and ‘Babli’ (Rani Mukherjee) are pseudonyms assumed by Rakesh Trivedi of Fursatganj and Vimmi Saluja of Pankinagar. Both Rakesh and Vimmi find the dreary small towns they are born in claustrophobic. To them the parental expectations that define their future are delimiting to what they perceive as their true potential. With starry dreams in their eyes and a determination to succeed, they run away from home to create their own destinies. Coincidence leads them to each other and they embark on a rollicking fun-filled journey across the spidery network of the Indian railways and highways. Disagreeing and bickering at every step, Rakesh and Vimmi take on a scam to collect some money to reach the land of dreams – ‘Mumbai’. The only thing they agree on is that conning gives them an indescribable high. Pushing their ambitions a further notch up, they become partners in ‘crime for fun’ as ‘Bunty’ and ‘Babli’. They play out one outrageous scam after another, moving across the entire terrain of North India -- Lucknow, Kanpur, Delhi, Agra, Bareilly, Varanasi, Mussoorie, Rishikesh, Hardwar. Relishing every minute of their vagabond lives, they cheat and loot all and sundry, live life as it comes. Soon they become mini celebrities and are on the most-wanted list. A crime-hating cop, bidi-chewing, chana-popping Deputy Commissioner of Police, Dashrath Singh (Amitabh Bachchan), is assigned the task of hunting them down and he takes to his mission with a vengeance. A cat and mouse game ensues till a conclusion is reached that is satisfactory to all.

Not a great film by any standards, but undoubtedly an entertaining one. Bunty aur Babli also marks the emergence of a freshly reconstructed genre aimed at Generation X not exposed to movies like these. The first half of the movie is full of wonderfully funny episodes like those of Rakesh’s confrontation with his conservative ticket-collector father who wants his son to follow in his footsteps, or Vimmi’s parents coaxing this self-proclaimed beauty queen to ready herself for marriage to a clerk with a ‘future’. The first scam, involving Babli dancing with a sleazy investor to the beats of Ramba ho while Bunty sweeps away the cash is hilarious. However, the tempo seems to slacken a bit as most of the dupes and scams take place during the title number, and all we get to see is Bunty and Babli enjoying the good life in various disguises and being chased by hordes of people and newspaper headlines. The film gets sluggish in the second half despite the dramatic entry of the Big B with a menacing mien and a hybrid accent (Allahabadi, Bihari and Haryanvi all in one). There are some great episodes though, the highlight being the scam of all scams: leasing of the Taj Mahal to a gullible American by Minister Phoolsakhi (a Mayawati lookalike).

Some unnecessary melodrama is thrown in, but fortunately it doesn’t last too long. The climax, with duo’s self-righteous assumption of an exaggerated good citizenship, and their subsequent return to action aided by their erstwhile assistants, this time on the right side of the law, is excellent.

Cinematography is first-rate: railway platforms, second class train compartments, tea-stalls, dhaabas, sleazy restaurants and bars, dusty offices, archaic elevators and telephone booths, crowded streets, wedding processions – cultural nuances of a forgotten India come alive with spectacular vibrancy and vividness. Enormous attention is paid to detail. Simple middle-class homes of Fursatganj and Pankinagar, Bunty’s flashy unbuttoned shirts and showy metallic calculator watch, Babli's garish kurtis and salwars, gaudy artificial jewellery, add to the small town feel of the film. Unfortunately, the jerky editing leads to the erratic nature of the pace. The movie would have been far more entertaining if some redundancies were eliminated and the script tightened. The music too is not exceptional. Catering to the mass, the director has included romance and song sequences that further slow the movie down. Most of us miss Amitabh’s rap number, which is being widely used to promote the movie. After three hours, we are usually in a hurry to leave and shun the end-credits when the song actually comes up.