Movie: Circus
Rating: 2/5
Discard: Ranveer Singh, Pooja Hegde, Jacqueline Fernandes, Johny Lever, Sanjay Mishra and Varun Sharma.

Cinematography: Jomon T. John.

The music: Devi Sri Prasad, Badshah and Lijo George.

Director: Rohit Shetty

Release date: December 23, 2022

“The Bard of Avon” can never be wrong. The timeless Shakespeare, more than 400 years after entertaining Queen Elizabeth I and her courtiers, continues to resonate in different ways with every generation. And his “Comedy of Errors” was a favorite among Bollywood filmmakers.

After Kishore Kumar’s “Do Dooni Chaar” and Sanjeev Kumar’s “Angoor” and a few other forgettable adaptations, comes Rohit Shetty’s “Cirkus”, featuring Ranveer Singh playing two sets of identical twins who are accidentally separated at birth. Unfortunately, Bollywood is as bad at adapting as it is at conceiving new ideas.

So what does the film offer? Old gags, insufferable jokes, poor acting and a plot that just doesn’t take off. Even when writers Farhad Samji, Sanchit Bedre, and Vidhi Ghodgaonkar attempt to Indianize the heavily edited tale, there’s nothing in terms of creative flair in this two-plus-hour film.

Twins Roy and Roy (Singh) and Joy and Joy (Sharma) separate at birth. Coincidentally, the two pairs are adopted by two different sets of parents – one Roy is deliberately paired with another Joy and the other Roy with the other Joy in Ooty and Bengaluru, respectively.

From the basic premise, it should have been a riot of laughter as the identical twins who live in different towns reunite and a mistaken identity causes a host of ridiculous situations. The two sets of twins met several years later when they were coincidentally in the same town. Needless to add that misunderstandings reign supreme when people confuse one with the other.

One Roy works in a circus and is unaffected by electric currents, causing much admiration and laughter among the audience. His act of holding bare electrical wires has everyone cheering enthusiastically for an encore. He earns his living professionally, but every time his body touches an electric wire, his twin in another town feels the shock as the current passes through his tissues.

Unless electrocuted, the twin brother feels the violence of the shock so much that anyone who comes into contact with him feels it too. Now, that could have led to not one but many fun moments.

And although the writers do their best to introduce characters, such as mothers (Ashwini Kalsikar and Sulabha Arya) and girlfriends Mala and Bindu (Hegde and Fernandes) to add to the confusions, chaos and mess, everything we have is a pathetic example of poor writing skills and excruciatingly unbearable situations, so much so that even the talented Ranveer Singh can barely salvage the film. His character repeats himself so often that he probably didn’t have to memorize his lines — nor did he have the opportunity to impulsively deliver dialogue.

Among the ensemble cast, which includes veterans Tiku Talsania, Vrajesh Hirje, Mukesh Tiwary, Brijender Kala, Sanjay Mishra and Johny Lever, none of them have a scene that could be described as hilarious, comedic or slightly fun.

Shetty, who specialized in a certain kind of humor in super hits like ‘Singham’, ‘Golmaal’ and ‘Chennai Express’, fails miserably at bringing laughs. The only thing that works for the movie is Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh’s sudden, impromptu jig on “Current laga re”.

It’s the only “paisa vasool” part of the movie, which has to be seen as a huge wasted opportunity.