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By Taran
Adarsh, May 2, 2008 - 12:00 IST
 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!
Rating * 1/2
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