Kathmandu:

Tom, Dick and Harry (Comedy)Cast: Dino Morea, Anuj Sawhney, Jimmy Shergill, Celina Jaitley, Kim Sharma and Gulshan GroverDirection: Deepak Tijori Showing at Kumari Cinema

Watch out! There’s a new menace meandering in the streets. Hidden cameras are passé, for the global gundas now are on the prowl for the real thing. Or at least, that’s what the off-kilter director Deepak Tijori wants to make us believe. We believe, we believe. But this isn’t just about believing the unbelievable. He might well have proven his penchant for dishing out outrageous masala flicks, but Deepak’s debut comedy venture, despite his knock-down-drag-out attempt goes pathetically ‘phut’.

‘Tom, Dick and Harry, who will Celina, marry?’ — that’s precisely the tattered premise that the story is built upon, but that alone doesn’t promise enough for audience who’ve already had too many of such twisters. This time Deepak even gets an ensemble cast of Bollywood’s brawniest boys to bum around with their buffoonery. And we don’t mind all that, for as long as that would have worked. What’s more, the director even tries to blend together a mishmash of other tested formulae of the Bollywood movie lore. But, despite his desperate attempt to dish out the delicious fare, it ends up as a bland broth on your plate.

Tom (Dino Morea), Dick (Anuj Sawhney) and Harry (Jimmy Shergil) are the eponymous deaf, blind and dumb characters. No sooner as Celina comes to live next door, their already messy lives turns even more chaotic. As instantly smitten as they are at her leggy busty display (as we audience), there’s no hint of the slightest tinge of humour in the mush. Of course, though the spirit of the story never perks up, Celina tries hard to pitch in more than her bimbolina act. But, all in vain. All she manages is to make the audience ogle at her wares.

As the spirit starts sagging by the end of the first half, enter Suprano the ultimate villain. With ensemble cronies of the biggest had-been villains of Bollywood and his weirdo antics, he quite manages to steal the show.

Unfortunately, the wafer thin storyline offers him little to do. Small mercies, that he is the only saving grace of the shipwrecked venture. And of course, the music by Himmeyish Reshmiya, though quite incongruously and indiscriminately forced, offers respite when the

story offers almost moves nowhere.