Rohit Shetty is clear from the word go: Cirkus is not for the critics and reviewers. It’s not for us to judge how well it’s made or how polished it is. All he wants to do is entertain the audience but even as an audience, I felt cheated. Based on William Shakespeare’s play The Comedy of Errors, Rohit Shetty not only offers a double dose of Ranveer Singh but also gives us a double expresso shot of Varun Sharma.
We’ve seen versions of the play adapted on the big screen in the past, Angoor being my favourite version of it. After watching Cirkus, I can safely say that the Sanjeev Kumar and Deven Verma version remains on my top spot. Cirkus begins with a lesson on surrogacy and bloodline but struggles to walk the Cirkus rope until the end. Set between the 1940s to 1960s, the film starts off with both the twin brothers purposely separated in order to prove that upbringing matters more than blood. Heavyweight dialogues are used with a touch of vintage melodrama. (Nirupa Roy enters the chat).
Growing up, one set of Ranveer and Varun make Cirkus their home while the other set is raised in the luxury of Bangalore. Both the sets are named Roy and Joy to add more confusion and comedy. Unaware of their twisted fate, their paths begin to align when the Bangalore set of Roy and Joy head to Ooty. During their one-day never-ending trip, Roy and Joy land in supposedly hysterical situations.
Rohit Shetty pulled out his iconic guns for Cirkus — the stellar comical cast, the punchlines, and even drew a connection with the Golmaal series, but the script got lost in the magic box. The first half of the film feels like a traffic-jammed trip to Ooty — the view is great but the people (or story in this case) refuse to move forward. There is only one comedy scene that lights up everyone in the first half, giving us false hopes that Rohit is finally coming into form but it falls flat soon after.
