Bobby Jasoos

Despite nailing its sociocultural context, this mildly entertaining film is uneventful

There is a flatness to this movie that is disappointing. Though nothing is inherently wrong with the concept or story, it never takes off. Like an aircraft on the runway trying to generate enough thrust to lift itself into the air, the film goes from episode to episode describing the exploits of a private detective called Bilqis Ahmed, aka Bobby, but is never able to lift you into the space of cinematic fiction.

However cleverly Bobby (Vidya Balan) is able to switch the disguises she needs to conduct her investigative work in Hyderabad, the actress fails to create a character you believe in, empathise with and who holds you right through a movie centered on her, as did Kangana Ranaut in Queen, where she played Rani, the daughter of a halwai from Delhi. There is a similar attempt here to place Bobby in the socio-cultural context of a middle-class family: here, a conservative Muslim one living in an old part of Hyderabad. But she just can’t carry it off.

You drift through Bobby’s hectic schedule as a ‘jasoos’ (detective) and note her big break when she gets a mysterious assignment from a very rich man called Anees Khan (Kiran Kumar) who asks her to locate two girls, and then a young man. This client wants anonymity, and though thrilled by the wads of cash as pay, Bobby gets suspicious of his motives.

The best thing about the film is Hyderabad, and the city becomes the most interesting character in Bobby Jasoos. Like with Paris and the Eiffel Tower, the Charminar is omnipresent in the film, while we traverse the city’s muhallahs and galis in search of missing people with identifiable birthmarks. And we follow Bobby while she drags her mother and sisters from one eatery to another to taste its biryani in the elusive search for the exact Hyderabadi variant of that traditional rice dish that will crack her case.

This film is an easy watch and equally easy to forget.

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Ajit Duara