‘Coolie No. 1’ trailer: Not bad, but not better either

Twenty-five years ago, the ‘original’ Coolie No. 1 starring Govinda and Karisma Kapoor had hit the marquee. Propelled by some first-rate comic performances, packaged with gut-busting moments and helmed by David Dhawan at his peak, the film went on to become a blockbuster that consolidated Govinda’s position as a superstar of the masses.

Twenty-five years later, the trailer of this popular classic's remake has dropped on Amazon Prime Video. The film stars Dhawan’s son Varun Dhawan opposite Sara Ali Khan and it will start streaming on the OTT platform on Christmas.

Produced by Vashu Bhagnani and shot across locations in Bangkok, the new version, not surprisingly, is a technologically superior product.

What had worked for its original, among other things, were the performances of its spontaneous ensemble cast led by Kader Khan who played the father who wants a dirty-stinking-filthy-rotten rich son-in-law and Sadashiv Amrapurkar as the wily matchmaker.

Neither Khan nor Amrapurkar are with us any longer. Stepping into their shoes are Paresh Rawal as the father and Javed Jaffrey as the matchmaker. Both these actors have their moments in the trailer with Rawal appearing to have benefitted from an author-backed role. But Farhad Samji’s dialogues lack the viewer-friendly wit of Kader Khan if there aren’t many hidden comic gems that the trailer hasn’t shown us in its three-minute-plus running time.

The film centres on Dhawan’s Raju, a coolie who masquerades as the royalty to impress the greedy father’s daughter Sarah (Sara Ali Khan). The actor has made a serious effort to play the part that is, for all practical purposes, a double role.

Has he succeeded in making an impact? He has, especially in the role of the coolie. He also gets to say some funny lines, such as he is waiting to be on a conference call with ‘ATM’ or ‘Ambani, Trump, Modi.’

The problem, however, is that the actor had to do better than Govinda who was at his best in the original. He falls way short of it, which is hardly surprising. Sara Ali Khan, on the other hand, hasn’t had much to do in the film. Hers is a minor presence with not much time on the screen, or that is how it seems.

What is noteworthy is the cinematography (Ravi K Chandran) while the reinterpretation of populist classics like Tujhko Mirchi Lagi has been done without trying too hard to be different.

A trailer that doesn’t reveal much while stoking our curiosity is a good one. The trailer of Coolie No.1 tells us a lot about the remake though.

From what we have seen, it seems the film won’t bore us to death. When we sit back and watch it, however, it will remind us of a beaming Govinda time and again.