''Bluffmaster!'' is a 2005 Indian
Hindi
Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...
-language
crime comedy
Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine ...
film directed by
Rohan Sippy and produced by
Ramesh Sippy
Ramesh Sippy (born 23 January 1947) is an Indian film director and producer in Hindi cinema. He is particularly known for directing ''Sholay'' (1975), which is regarded as one of the most influential Indian film ever made. The Government o ...
. The film stars
Abhishek Bachchan
Abhishek Bachchan (born 5 February 1976) is an Indian actor and film producer known for his work in Hindi films. Part of the Bachchan family, he is the son of actors Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan and the grandson of poet Harivansh Rai Bach ...
,
Riteish Deshmukh
Riteish Vilasrao Deshmukh (born 17 December 1978) is an Indian actor, comedian, television presenter, writer, director and film producer. He is the son of former Chief Minister of Maharashtra Vilasrao Deshmukh. He works in Hindi and Marathi ci ...
,
Priyanka Chopra
Priyanka Chopra Jonas (; ; born 18 July 1982) is an Indian actress and producer. The winner of the Miss World 2000 pageant, Chopra is one of India's highest-paid actresses and has received numerous accolades, including two National Film Awar ...
,
Sanjay Mishra,
Boman Irani
Boman Irani (born 2 December 1959) is an Indian actor, photographer and voice artist who works predominantly in Hindi cinema he has also worked in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. He has acted in more than a 100 films in his career.
Ear ...
and
Nana Patekar
Vishwanath Patekar (born 1 January 1951), better known as Nana Patekar, is an Indian actor, screenwriter, film maker, and a former Indian Territorial Army officer, mainly working in Hindi and Marathi cinema. He is regarded as one of the finest an ...
. It is an adaptation of the 2000
Argentine film ''
Nine Queens
''Nueve Reinas'' () is a 2000 Argentinian crime film written and directed by Fabián Bielinsky. It stars Ricardo Darín, Gastón Pauls, and Leticia Brédice. In the film, con artists Marcos (Darín) and Juan (Pauls) unexpectedly team up to sell ...
''.
It follows a conman who gets dumped by his girlfriend and after realising he is suffering from a severe illness, decides to help a new apprentice before dying.
''Bluffmaster'' was released on 16 December 2005, and received mixed reviews from critics. The film became a box office success, becoming a semi-hit, as well as being the 13th
highest-grossing Bollywood film of 2005.
Plot
Roy Kapoor (
Abhishek Bachchan
Abhishek Bachchan (born 5 February 1976) is an Indian actor and film producer known for his work in Hindi films. Part of the Bachchan family, he is the son of actors Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan and the grandson of poet Harivansh Rai Bach ...
) is a conman, information that his girlfriend Simran 'Simi' Ahuja (
Priyanka Chopra
Priyanka Chopra Jonas (; ; born 18 July 1982) is an Indian actress and producer. The winner of the Miss World 2000 pageant, Chopra is one of India's highest-paid actresses and has received numerous accolades, including two National Film Awar ...
) is not privy to. On the day of their engagement, however, Roy's true character is exposed and Simi leaves him. Consequently, Roy starts drinking heavily.
Six months later, Roy meets Aditya 'Dittu' Srivastav (
Riteish) and Jassi (
Sanjay Mishra), amateur conmen who attempt to con him but are unable to do so. They set their sights on a doctor, Dr. Bhalerao (played by
Boman Irani
Boman Irani (born 2 December 1959) is an Indian actor, photographer and voice artist who works predominantly in Hindi cinema he has also worked in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. He has acted in more than a 100 films in his career.
Ear ...
) instead. Roy helps Bhalerao after he is conned and Bhalerao feels greatly indebted to him.
One fateful day, Roy drinks too much and starts feeling dizzy. In the middle of the street, he falls unconscious and is saved by Dittu. Dittu begs Roy to teach him (Dittu) all he (Roy) knows about the art of conning. Roy reluctantly agrees and the two start their escapades, conning everyone from a family to a "gang" who possesses black money. Roy and Dittu decide to visit a club, where Roy starts feeling dizzy again. He again falls unconscious. Dittu then takes him to hospital. Roy learns (via a CAT scan done by Dr. Bhalerao) that he has a brain tumor and will die within three months.
Simi, meanwhile, is working as a restaurant manager and is again engaged to be married to a man whom she doesn't love. Roy tries to tell her that he has a brain tumor. She eventually believes him – after meeting with the doctor – and they rekindle their friendship.
It is then revealed that Dittu's father and many others have been duped of their life savings by a man called Chandru (
Nana Patekar
Vishwanath Patekar (born 1 January 1951), better known as Nana Patekar, is an Indian actor, screenwriter, film maker, and a former Indian Territorial Army officer, mainly working in Hindi and Marathi cinema. He is regarded as one of the finest an ...
), the main reason that Dittu became a conman in the first place. Roy decides that, before he dies, he'll help Dittu con Chandru of his stolen wealth. However, while planning the ultimate fraud, Roy's cancer enters its final stages.
Simi is then kidnapped by Chandru and Roy goes to rescue her. Roy is afterwards pushed by Chandru from the terrace of a building, only to survive because he falls on a huge inflated square. Roy then goes for an MRI scan at the hospital, which is actually closed, to realise that he is well and that his cancer has been cured.
Roy goes home, only to find that everything that happened until then was staged, masterminded by Dittu and scripted by Chandru. Almost everybody involved in the plan was duped by Roy and the plan was to get him out of his wrong ways. Roy never had cancer: he thought he did because the scans were fake and drugs were sometimes added to Roy's drinks to make him feel those were symptoms of cancer. Roy then decides to mend his ways and thus the film ends happily.
Cast
*
Abhishek Bachchan
Abhishek Bachchan (born 5 February 1976) is an Indian actor and film producer known for his work in Hindi films. Part of the Bachchan family, he is the son of actors Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan and the grandson of poet Harivansh Rai Bach ...
as Roy Kapoor
*
Riteish Deshmukh
Riteish Vilasrao Deshmukh (born 17 December 1978) is an Indian actor, comedian, television presenter, writer, director and film producer. He is the son of former Chief Minister of Maharashtra Vilasrao Deshmukh. He works in Hindi and Marathi ci ...
as Aditya 'Dittu' Srivastav / Arjun Bajaj
*
Priyanka Chopra
Priyanka Chopra Jonas (; ; born 18 July 1982) is an Indian actress and producer. The winner of the Miss World 2000 pageant, Chopra is one of India's highest-paid actresses and has received numerous accolades, including two National Film Awar ...
as Simran 'Simi' Ahuja
*
Sanjay Mishra as Jassi
*
Nana Patekar
Vishwanath Patekar (born 1 January 1951), better known as Nana Patekar, is an Indian actor, screenwriter, film maker, and a former Indian Territorial Army officer, mainly working in Hindi and Marathi cinema. He is regarded as one of the finest an ...
as Chandrakant 'Chandru' Parekh / Shridhar
*
Boman Irani
Boman Irani (born 2 December 1959) is an Indian actor, photographer and voice artist who works predominantly in Hindi cinema he has also worked in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. He has acted in more than a 100 films in his career.
Ear ...
as Dr. Vijay Bhalerao
*
Tinnu Anand
Tinu Anand (born Virender Raj Anand, 12 October 1945) is an Indian actor, director, writer and producer in Hindi cinema and a few Telugu and Tamil films.
Early life
He is the son of veteran writer Inder Raj Anand, brother of producer Bittu An ...
as Parimal Bajaj, Arjun's father
*
Mahesh Thakur
Mahesh Thakur is an Indian actor who has played roles in many films, TV serials and web series. He has authored a book titled I-Quotes which was published in early 2021 by Popular Prakashan
Popular Prakashan is an Indian independent publis ...
as I. L. Malhotra
*
Supriya Pilgaonkar as Mrs. I. L. Malhotra
*
Arash Labaf in a special appearance in song "Buro Buro"
*
Carol Gracias in a special appearance
Soundtrack
The soundtrack was released on 20 November 2005. The background score was composed by Sameeruddin. According to the Indian trade website ''
Box Office India
Box Office India is an Indian film website. Its traffic ranking in India is 83,665 . A new Box Office India website went live on 20 January 2014.
About
Box Office India was launched on 10 June 2003. Its uses Whois privacy to anonymize its ow ...
'', it was the tenth-highest-selling soundtrack album of that year, with around 1.4 million units sold.
Track listing
#"Sabse Bada Rupaiyya" :
Mehmood
Mahmud is a transliteration of the male Arabic given name (), common in most parts of the Islamic world. It comes from the Arabic triconsonantal root Ḥ-M-D, meaning ''praise'', along with ''Muhammad''.
Siam Mahmud
*Mahmood (singer) (born 1 ...
, Chetan, Saira Hussain, TrickBaby – 4:09
#"Say Na Say Na" :
Aneela Mirza
Aneela Mirza (born 8 October 1974) is a Danish singer based in the United Kingdom. She has found success as a member of the pop group Toy-Box and as a solo artist performing mononymously as Aneela.
She was part of the Danish pop group Toy-Box ...
,
Robert Uhlmann,
Arash
Arash the Archer ( fa, آرش کمانگیر ''Āraš-e Kamāngīr'') is a heroic archer-figure of Iranian mythology.
According to Iranian folklore, the boundary between Iran and Turan was set by an arrow launched by Arash, after he put his own ...
– 3:16
#"Tadbeer Se Bigdi Hui Taqdeer" (Destiny Mix) :
Geeta Dutt
Geeta Dutt (born Geeta Ghosh Roy Chowdhuri; 23 November 1930 – 20 July 1972) was an Indian playback singer and a famous Hindi and Bengali classical artist, born in Faridpur before the Partition of India. She found particular prominence as a ...
– 3:26
#"Right Here Right Now" : Abhishek Bachchan,
Sunidhi Chauhan – 3:02
#"9 Parts of Desire" : TrickBaby (Hussain, Ager) – 3:48
#"The Gateway Theme" :
Sameeruddin – 2:47
#"
Boro Boro" :
Robert Uhlmann,
Arash
Arash the Archer ( fa, آرش کمانگیر ''Āraš-e Kamāngīr'') is a heroic archer-figure of Iranian mythology.
According to Iranian folklore, the boundary between Iran and Turan was set by an arrow launched by Arash, after he put his own ...
– 3:06
#"Do Aur Do Paanch" : Sameeruddin – 4:29
#"Indi-Yarn" : TrickBaby (Hussain, Ager) – 3:58
#"Neela" : TrickBaby (Hussain, Ager) – 3:06
#"Parde Ke Peechhe" :
Jaideep Sahni
Jaideep Sahni (born 1968) is an Indian screenwriter, songwriter and creative producer, who wrote the screenplays for films like '' Chak De! India'', ''Khosla Ka Ghosla'', '' Company'', ''Bunty Aur Babli'', '' Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year' ...
, TrickBaby (Hussain, Ager) – 3:37
#"Come Fishing" (Bluffmaster Theme) : Sameeruddin – 2:42
#"Right Here Right Now" (Hip Hop Mix) : Abhishek Bachchan, Sunidhi Chauhan – 3:43
Release
Reception
''Bluffmaster'' received mixed reviews from critics.
''
BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...
'' gave the film 4 stars out of 5, appreciating the "cleverly-constructed" storyline, direction and performances by the supporting cast. Raja Sen from ''
Rediff.com
Rediff.com (stylized as ''rediff.com'') is an Indian news, information, entertainment and shopping web portal. It was founded in 1996. It is headquartered in Mumbai, with offices in Bangalore, New Delhi and New York City.
, it had more than 300 e ...
'' praised the film, noting the film's comedy, dialogue, tone and music as its major positives and calling it a feel-good style ''
Matchstick Men
''Matchstick Men'' is a 2003 black comedy film directed by Ridley Scott and based on Eric Garcia's 2002 novel of the same name. The film stars Nicolas Cage, Sam Rockwell, and Alison Lohman. The film premiered on September 2, 2003 at the 60th Veni ...
'' (2003). However, film and trade analyst
Taran Adarsh
Taran Adarsh (born 13 June 1965) is an Indian film critic and trade analyst. He is best known for giving trade figures and box office updates on social media.
Career
Taran Adarsh started his journalism career at the age of 15 with ''Trade Gui ...
reacted negatively, giving the film 1.5 stars out of 5, praising several individualistic sequences, music, dialogue and cinematography but criticizing the romance track, and mainly the climax, which he called "''
The Sixth Sense
''The Sixth Sense'' is a 1999 American psychological thriller film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. It stars Bruce Willis as a child psychologist whose patient ( Haley Joel Osment) claims he can see and talk to the dead.
Released ...
''" kind of an ending.
Box office
According to ''
Box Office India
Box Office India is an Indian film website. Its traffic ranking in India is 83,665 . A new Box Office India website went live on 20 January 2014.
About
Box Office India was launched on 10 June 2003. Its uses Whois privacy to anonymize its ow ...
'', lifetime collection of the film is Rs. 327 million, and was thus declared a semi-hit at the box-office.
Home video
In August 2020, the film began streaming on
Amazon Prime Video. It is also streaming on
Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fi ...
.
References
External links
* {{IMDb title, id=0476527, title=Bluff Master
2005 films
Films about con artists
Films directed by Rohan Sippy
Films set in Mumbai
2000s Hindi-language films
Indian crime comedy films
Films scored by Vishal–Shekhar
UTV Motion Pictures films
Indian remakes of foreign films
Indian comedy thriller films