Rohit Shetty’s Cirkus Has Scant Comedy, & Surplus Of Errors

This is #CriticalMargin, where our critic Ishita Sengupta gets contemplative about new Hindi films and shows.

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If there was ever a ‘Rohit Shetty Film’, Cirkus is it. The hugely successful director derives most of his fandom from comedy ventures. And with good reason. His Golmaal franchise has achieved modern-day cult status, with its later instalments becoming even bigger hits than the first venture (2006). Even in his otherwise sombre outings like Simmba (2018) and Sooryavanshi (2021), Shetty’s grasp over comedy is unmistakable. This is not to say all his films are artfully done. But the craft to his commercial acumen lies in the filmmaker’s ability to make something out of nothing, of finding a rhythm in chaos. In his conviction to commit to an unhinged-ness of his own creation.

The premise of Cirkus, that of two sets of identical twins separated at birth, is as chaotic as it can get. It is brimming with the possibilities of mistaken identities, confusion, bewilderment. Basically everything Shetty does anyway in his films — only this time, it has a purpose. But what he has made is so specifically bland, so pointedly unfunny that it undoes the potential of an otherwise classic source. If I have to draw a comparison I’d say, watching Cirkus is like reading a joke typed in Times New Roman font. The humour is lost in articulation.

The setting of course is not original. Think of the 1963 Bengali film Bhrantibilas. Think also of Debu Sen’s 1968 film Do Dooni Char and Gulzar’s Angoor (1982). All of them share a common origin ground: William Shakespeare’s farce, The Comedy of Errors. Repeated adaptations of the play (there are plenty of iterations in other languages) underlines the ripe comic promise of the plot. On his part, Shetty does the most Rohit Shetty thing: fills the film with hundred characters and two hundred subplots (an exaggeration, but is it really?), losing sight of the main story he was set to tell.

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This is a travesty because Cirkus is headlined by Ranveer Singh, arguably the sole good thing about Shetty’s last two outings, and an actor who can strike a balance between showy staging and accessible intensity. That he has a double role only lends him a wider canvas to exhibit his flamboyance. But Singh plays the two characters like he is talking to two different cameras at the same time; as though he is featuring in an Instagram reel and this is a sponsored post. It doesn’t help that the twins are attributed with zero character depth. The only thing we know is that they share the same name — Roy — and that one of them stays in Ooty, and the other in Bangalore. The former runs a circus, and the latter just walks around with a suitcase full of cash. The two share an electrified connection (no, really). The circus performer has the ability to absorb electricity. This manifests in the other Roy transmitting electricity (similar to David Dhawan’s 1997 film Judwaa).

To be fair, this is enough of a premise for Shetty to milk. But not only does he not do anything, he undoes even what could have been done.

The story begins at a research university in pre-independent India. The year is 1942 and the person in focus is Roy Jamnadas (Murali Sharma having fun), who runs an adoption centre and doubles up as a doctor. He believes that the predisposition of a human being depends on their upbringing (parvarish) and not bloodline. To make his point, he interchanges two sets of twins (Singh and Varun Sharma) at the time of their adoption. The respective families, unaware of his wily behaviour, are so moved that they name their kids Roy and Joy. This is a good time to share that the OG Joy also has a brother called Roy. At this point in the film, there are three sets of Joy and Roy.

Now, imagine the confusion that can happen from this mix-up, imagine also where all the plot can go from where. Now draw up the least funny scenario in your head. That’s the one Shetty opts for. It is a marvel really how the filmmaker refuses to risk anything at all, avoids a comedy of errors at all cost, and restricts the story with amateur ambition. What we are left with is a film that unfolds entirely on a set, and 2,000 questions. Why does Joy own a circus when the only thing he is proficient at, is disappointing his wife? Why does the film take place in the 1960s and why is Jacqueline Fernandez wearing crop tops? Why do the twins never run into each other even when they are in the same city? Why is Deepika Padukone lending her presence to a film that doesn’t deserve her? Why are the female characters (Fernandez and Pooja Hegde) relegated to the foot of a footnote? Why is the CGI worse than anything we have seen this year, making one of the twins look like a cardboard fixture? Who thought of casting Sanjay Mishra?

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The last question is still a query but it is, in fact, veiled appreciation. If there is anything that works for Cirkus, in spite of everything that doesn’t, it is Mishra. The actor reprises the tonality, kookiness from his previous roles (in Shetty’s films) but there is something to be said of the commitment with which he goes bonkers. Mishra is terrific as Fernandez’s rich, loud-mouthed father, lighting up the screen whenever he is in. It is truly a testament to his merit that all his dialogues feel like improv, as if Mishra is ad libbing them, and with no inhibitions. For nothing else explains him calling someone else “a human lollypop” or uttering psycho as “p-sycho” without batting an eyelid. If Cirkus was just two hours of Sanjay Mishra on screen, the film would have been a better Rohit Shetty film than all his previous work put together.

Which brings me to my final question: Why does Rohit Shetty feel he can get away with anything? Cirkus is a classic example of a director being too smug with his commercial success. In fact, much like his expanding cop universe, his latest film ends with a clear inkling that he is building his comicverse. Going by how unfunny his outings have become, this comes across as a threat and not a promise. For if anything, Cirkus was a tailor-made ‘Rohit Shetty Film’. That it isn’t, is an outcome for which only the director is to be blamed.