Mumbai: Amid the nepotism debate and boycott trend, Varun Dhawan and Sara Ali Khan’s new release Coolie No 1 is getting flak from the audience as well as from film critics.
The IMDb platform, which permits the public to rate a film, the remake of Govinda and Karisma Kapoor starrer, this David Dhawan film has scored a rating of 1.4 out of 10 which is worse than films such as Race 3 (1.9) and Himmatwala (1.7).
The Varan Dhawan and Sara Ali Khan starrer, Coolie No 1, was released on Amazon Prime Video this Friday and received 23,000 public ratings on IMDb. However, Amazon said that this film has recorded the biggest opening of the year on its platform.
The film has largely generated negative reviews from critics as well. Film critic, Anupama Chopra called this film problematic towards women and outdated.
The Hindustan Times review read, “Although suspension of disbelief is a part of watching a David Dhawan film, Coolie No 1’s plot is hopelessly out of sync with today’s time. Men get hit in gonads and women are the victims of casual sexism. Speech impairment is mined for laughs, as is people’s weight. Even coronavirus is not spared as it is used in a rather tasteless, and unfunny, joke.”
Actor Shikha Talsania, who has a pivotal role in the film stars. She told Mid-Day, “Entertainment can be different for different people. A certain kind of humour works for me, while another doesn’t. But, I can choose to watch what I enjoy.”
Earlier, the main lead of the film, Sara Ali Khan talked about the problematic things of the original film, in which Govinda’s character cons Karisma’s character into falling for him. Sara said that if one views everything through a politically correct lens, ‘any scope of humour in our lives will be lost’.