By Subhash K. Jha, Indo-Asian News Service
Mumbai, Dec 17 (IANS) Rohan Sippy won’t dare to do his dad Ramesh Sippy’s super-duper hit “Sholay”. But now the slick gadgetry of his “Bluffmaster” harks back to the senior Sippy’s “Shaan”.
He had also done his own take on Ramesh Sippy’s “Andaz” with “Kuch Naa Kaho” – both were about the rehabilitation of a single mother. The film had starred Abhishek Bachchan.
And the actor is there again in “Bluffmaster”. Rohan cheers up at his pal’s mention. “I can’t think of making a film without Abhishek.
“Of course, he’s in my next film. It will again try to crack a genre. We’ll be doing something that has never been attempted before. Anything I make will automatically go to Abhishek. I’ll go to someone else only if he doesn’t have the time,” Rohan told IANS.
“We had so much fun making ‘Bluffmaster’. I initially wanted him to do the role Ritesh Deshmukh finally did. Abhishek shares a sense of goofy fun with the character.
“At one point it seemed Abhishek won’t be able to do ‘Bluffmaster”. His dates clashed with Karan Johar’s film. Then Karan’s film got pushed forward, and we were on. Once Abhishek was in, everything fell into place.”
Rohan admits there’s a huge difference in Abhishek’s market value since “Kuch Naa Kaho”.
“And that’s only going to benefit ‘Bluffmaster’. We’ve both grown since our first film together. Hopefully that growth will show in ‘Bluffmaster’.”
The diffident director admits he has made the kind of fun film he believes in.
“I agree ‘Kuch Naa Kaho’ was more socially conscious. The widow remarriage theme was homage to my dad’s (Ramesh Sippy) first film ‘Andaz’. In a way ‘Bluffmaster’ tilts its hat to my father’s ‘Shaan’.
“The slickness is taken from there. ‘Shaan’ didn’t work for my dad. But I love every frame of it. ‘Bluffmaster’ is inspired by other heist capers like – ‘The Sting’ and ‘Do Aur Do Paanch’. But it has an emotional core. There are moments between Abhishek and Boman Irani which stay with you.”
Talking about the cast, which includes Nana Patekar, he says: “I wondered if he (Nana) would want to work with someone as young as me but he loved his role.”
Besides the cast, one of the highlights in the film is its ambience.
“It’s Mumbai like never before,” says Rohan.
“You know so many of our films are set in Mumbai. But we never see the city. Never experience the crowds and energy. In ‘Bluffmaster’ we’ve actually gone out on the streets to experience the smells and sights like never before. You know, the locations actually speak to you. It’s up to the director how he embraces the language of the location,” says he.
Rohan is ecstatic about the speed at which ‘Bluffmaster’ was filmed. “We had just six weeks’ notice to go on the floors… We wrapped up in just six months. Though second films are considered tougher than the first, I had a far easier time making ‘Bluffmaster’. Everything just fell into place… including Abhishek’s rap version of Mehmood’s song ‘Sabse bada rupaiya’.
“The soundtrack has a certain untried quality about it…The one thing that Abhishek and I were sure of was we didn’t want to attempt what had already been done. I guess I learnt that from my father.
