Bajimaat: Too loud and long (Bangla)

Bajimaat, on the surface, is all about a poor boy Subhro with rich dreams of becoming the champion in a talent-hunt reality music show on television. He is a little in love with rich and pretty Jhilik who has the same dream but has moneyed parents and a brother-in-law to back her. But Subhro is not just a dreamer. He is also a prankster who steals chickens for a party from a neighbour his poor father has to pay for, apart from failing his exams every year. He hides his failure third time running. He persuades his father to part with Rs.1 lakh out of the golden handshake he has just got under the plea that he is joining a computer-training programme. He pays the sum to the con-man who heads a betting ring for the talent hunt, rigging smses for higher votes to ‘fix’ the winner. His father suffers a cerebral attack and Subhro lands in jail for bashing up the mafia kingpin of the music scam. His mother makes him promise that he will never sing again. So, when opportunity strikes with a good-hearted benefactor who owns a music channel stepping in, all Subhro can do is to accept the job of a peon in his office. His girlfriend has broken off and is now backed by the villain who promises her the championship. Like every masala film, everything ends happily ever after. The villains are vanquished, Subhro’s mother lifts the vow and he wins back the faith of his family, the love of his girlfriend and the championship.

Bajimaat is a musical with a lot of exaggerated melodrama fitted in. Haradhan has tried to bring the betting element but he could have explored this in some depth and given precedence to the contest scams than to the villains’ misdemeanors. But the music, one is sorry to say, is nothing compared to the brilliant songs in Saathi that catapulted Jeet to instant stardom at one go. The lyrics by Gautam Susmit are quite good though but the choreography is too bad and so is the production design for the stage scenes. Soham does his best in a dream debut where he is given the opportunity to explore all hero qualities like romance, fighting, family conflicts and dancing. The opening dream scene seems to have taken inspiration from the massive public turnout at Prashant Tamang’s winning procession. Soham needs to work really hard on the skills he has been able only to skim the surface of in his debut film. Ranjit Mullick does well as the do-gooder and so does Santu Mukherjee as Soham’s father. Subhasree looks sweet but stupid. She cannot take on the challenge of leading lady at this point. Surajit should change his looks, which also applies to Soham in a big way. Rajatabha Dutta and Shoumili are wasted in the film. The cinematography is nothing to write home about. At least 45 minutes clipped from the footage running into two hours and forty-five minutes would have done better for the film.
VerdictJust one star for Soham.