Chal Chala Chal Review

Deepak (Govinda) is well-educated, but squirms at the idea of corrupt employers and shady practices. This puts him out of the entire job market and its parking lot. He lives with his father (Om Puri), and his (Deepak's) 2 married sisters and their families. Thus, we have 2 wily brothers-in-law - one of them (Asrani) a mean lawyer, and the other a crooked RTA officer - who are hell-bent on selling the house in which they all live. Frankly, we are going with the brothers-in-law - this film needs all the money it can get! And that's just to sprinkle industrial quantities of glucose water on the sleepy script.

Now, Deepak is running around lawyers because his father has been denied pension by his school, in a legal tangle so old, the original appeal was tossed into Ramapithecus' firewood. Sadly, the school is too broke to do anything about the issue, except to give Deepak's father an old bus as compensation. Deciding to make a living out of the opportunity, Deepak and his side-kick, Sunder (Rajpal Yadav), start a bus service that they name Chal Chala Chal.

However, the ride isn't smooth. First, there's the careless driver, Basantilal (Shakti Kapoor), a recommendation from Deepak's brother-in-law. Basantilal gives a damn about his passengers, his boss, the rat sitting in the first-aid box â€" in short, about anything that moves its facial muscles, mostly because nothing that moves its facial muscles belongs to his species.

Then, we have the surly labour union leader, Gajender Singh (Murli Sharma), who's the kind who would take your liver to court for hurting his knife if he ever stabbed you. Also, there's a heroine (Reema Sen), who tries her own ways of swindling Deepak of his money, but for strictly legitimate reasons â€" her elder sister is dead, her father is ill, she has a younger sibling to bring up, and even industrial quantities of glucose won't put an expression on her face.

The rest of the story is about some more big glitches in the way of Deepak and Sunder, and how they overcome them to succeed in whatever it is they are doing. The ending is slightly unconventional â€" it comes a good one hour after normally functioning members of the audience have called it a day.

Chal Chala Chal is not even ticklish, and no Govinda film has the license to be so. Govinda gets way too emotional fighting his daily battles with all the dishonesty that comes his way. The effort seems very political, and a little tired, specially in the second half. He puts in a good performance, however.

Rajpal Yadav is alright, and Om Puri has a lifeless role with some obscure platitudes about how to go about life sincerely and lovingly. Murli Sharma is intimidating as the union leader, and provides for one or two punch-filled moments.

This film's music is credited to 3 music directors. This explains how the film sounds â€" no single person could do that to a film! This, however, does not explain the movie's dismal production values â€" nothing could explain that.

In all, Chal Chala Chal has nothing that will last in the theatres beyond a week, and nothing that will last in your memory beyond 8 seconds. If you're lucky.