One Two Three

One Two Three (comedy)
Cast : Suneil Shetty, Paresh Rawal, Tusshar Kapoor, Esha Deol, Sameera Reddy
Direction : Ashwani Dheer

PLEASE dad, call it lingerie, not bra-panty, insists a harassed son to his father. Yes please, you feel like crying out on behalf of the harassed viewer who is saddled with a film that shows, mentions, waves, peddles, juggles female underwear in the name of cinema; for the sake of comedy. Krazzy! For surely, hooking a few laughs on this brand of female apparel may have been one of Bollywood's oldest tricks. But to booby trap all your laughs on D-cup is neither chic, nor funny. So are you ready for a bagful of stringy things being passed around a bunch of oddball characters and wonder what's so funny about an itsy bitsy piece of cloth.

Now this is quite a disappointment, coming from a director who has already proved his forte with comedy on the small screen. Ashwani Dheer's popular satire on babudom and bureaucracy, Office Office , has quite a fan following. Diehard fans refused to give up their tryst with the harried common man (Pankaj Kapoor) who tries to wade through familiar corruption and red tape, despite the advent of the sundry comedy shows and the barrage of stand-up comedians. One Two Three however lacks both the finesse and the humour and you manage a smile only rarely: when Sanjay Mishra imitates vintage villain Jeevan. The rest is one long comedy of errors caused by three people having the same name, Lakshmi Narayan. Lakshmi one (Paresh Rawal) sells lingerie in a car, Lakshmi two (Sunil Shetty) is an executive with a mean boss who wants to buy a car, Lakshmi three (Tusshar Kapoor) is a small time Bhai on his first assignment as a hitman. Trouble begins when the three Lakshmi Narayans land up in the same hotel and their tasks -- and identities -- get mixed up. Add to this an underworld war between two gangsters, a stolen diamond, a lingerie designer (Esha Deol) who dreams of marrying a don, a car salesgirl (Sameera Reddy) who poses in bikinis in front of the cars, an oversexed Haryanvi cop (Neetu Chandra) who imitates a TV character, and you have a gag bag with no laughs.

And hey, was that Upen Patel and Tanisha in the credit list? Count one two three, and they're gone!