What do you get when three incompetent thieves break into a bank and flub every move even as a swaggering police officer waits for them outside?
A skit, at best, or a few scenes of wacky humour. But director Bumpy has boldly dreamt up a whole movie based on incompetence. Bad move: Bank Chor is low on laughs, squanders its potential, and reflects the ineptitude of the heist in question.
Champak (Riteish Deshmukh) leads two other dim-witted thieves into a bank but seems to get everything wrong, from securing the hostages (now tied, now roaming around freely) to opening lockers and negotiating terms with police officer Amjad Khan (Vivek Oberoi).
Amjad spends the movie pacing outside the bank, pulling at his moustache and growling threats at television reporter Gayatri (Rhea Chakraborty), while elsewhere in Mumbai, a crooked businessman and a politician suggest that a bigger plot is afoot.
At the interval point, Bumpy takes a serious and sinister turn, swapping comedy for melodrama, before attempting a final rug-pulling twist that, had it been revealed earlier, would have rendered the movie redundant.
The 120-minute affair barely exploits one of its better jokes. One of the hostages is the rapper Baba Sehgal, playing himself. Given to replying in rhyming verse, Sehgal is released from the scene far too early, allowing other less talented comic talents the run of the place.
Riteish Deshmukh, an expert at face-pulling slapstick, has little material to work with, and is surrounded by extras trying too hard to make their short appearances count. Sahil Vaid nearly bursts his nostril passages while trying to play an inside man with a mysterious connection to the malarkey. Incompetence only breeds incompetence.