Jimmy

If you are of a certain age, and a Hindi film fan, you’re sure to remember Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy, aja , aja, aja, Mithun Chakraborty’s song-and-dance dhamaka (this was way before item numbers came into being) which catapulted him into the front ranks of Bollywood.

The fact that Mimoh, Mithun’s son, calls himself Jimmy in his debut movie is surely not a coincidence. But really, even the fondest fathers should have given themselves a pause before they handed out cult names, associated so strongly with them, to their offspring on a platter: this ‘Jimmy’ mangles all the good memories of the original Jimmy.

Mimoh, under the baton of old-timer Raj N Sippy, gets served up in a dish which was cold before the 80s gave out. It has, just for the record, a loving mother, a dead father, a clutch of villains, and a bad guy who wears a black trench-coat and a mask. But even if it had been a hip new age director, in a serviceable script, the results would have been the same: the straggly-haired first-timer has not even an iota of personality; he even, horrors, dances badly.

What could Mithun, who is still turning out award-winning parts, both in Hindi and Bangla films, have been thinking of?

shubhra.gupta@gmail.com