Banjo movie review: Riteish Deshmukh and Nargis Fakhri fail to strike the right chord!

Director Ravi Jadhav has given us three delicious cinematic treats in the form of Balak Palak (BP), Natrang and Timepass. All three Marathi movies were driven by powerful narratives coupled with incre

Director Ravi Jadhav has given us three delicious cinematic treats in the form of Balak Palak (BP), Natrang and Timepass. All three Marathi movies were driven by powerful narratives coupled with incredible directorial brilliance. Naturally expectations from this one, Jadhav’s foray into Bollywood, were sky high. Unfortunately, he doesn’t quite hit the right note with Banjo. The story of Riteish Deshmukh and Nargis Fakhri starrer could not have been more obvious! But still we were expecting a decent watch from this one for Jadhav is known for telling simple tales with very gripping screenplay and peepers his storyline with life-like believability. The naturalness he brings on celluloid is commendable. Banjo lets us down as not a single note goes right. ALSO READ: Was Banjo actress Nargis Fakhri FORCED to cover up cleavage on Dance Plus 2?

Riteish Deshmukh plays a maverick musician from Mumbai slums. His character is painted with broad strokes of white. Not a single shade of grey to him, our hero is a saviour too who rescues life with as much zest as when he is busy rocking with his band on the local level. Pops in Nargis Fakhri out of nowhere to give the local chokra’s a platform where they can unleash their true Potential. Fakhri’s character hails from New York! So she needed a voice artist to save us the trauma of her exaggerated accent. ALSO READ: The Kapil Sharma Show: Did Kapil take a dig at Banjo actors Riteish Deshmukh and Nargis Fakhri?

The fact that he is a DJ is a reason enough for her to spot the rare talent in our boys. She must channelize their energy and efforts in the right direction in order to carve rockstar out of them. The band is not convinced about their own talent. So she inspires them by showing placards and posters of the legends like Bob Marley and Bryan Adams. There’s only one hurdle that can stop these boys from reaching their ultimate goal. A villain who speaks Hindi with a clipped English accent that could possibly give Nargis Fakhri a run for her money! ALSO READ: Nargis Fakhri quashes rumours of leaving India

Banjo fails on multiple levels. It induces yawn and even three breaks with the prestex to take a leak and couple others to fetch popcorn are not enough from putting you to sleep. The one liners are cheesy. The jokes are far from funny. And the music is anything but memorable. Mind you this an underdog story of a man with genius who strives to achieve impossible. Sadly you can’t relate with the character or the story!

As for the performances Riteish Deshmukh tries hard to impress or to evoke genuine feelings of passion and poise. Bu nothing and we mean it, nothing—from his costume to his dialogue delivery-works. Nargis Fakhri is delicious to look at but acting wise she has not improved on the basics. The only respite of Banjo are the sidekicks and the protagonist’ gang of boys who try to give some tadka to this otherwise insipid tale

 Rating: 2 stars