‘The Big Bull‘

Cast: Abhishek. A. Bachchan, Ileana D’Cruz, Nikita Dutta, Soham Shah, Ram Kapoor, Supriya Pathak, Saurabh Shukla and Mahesh Manjrekar

Director: Kookie Gulati

Duration: Two hours 35 minutes

Where to Watch?: Disney+ Hotstar

Critics’ Rating: 2.5/5

‘The Big Bull‘ Story:

Inspired by events from the late 80s and early 90s that shook the country’s financial fabric, the biggest Indian hustle is here.

‘The Big Bull‘ Review:

The Big Bull was announced to release on Disney+ Hotstar back in 2020 when a few films were opting for OTT outing than the big screen owing to the coronavirus pandemic. Little did they know that Hansal Mehta will create a storm with Pratik Gandhi and make the masses fall in love with Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story. The pressure on the film was instantly created by the viewers as Scam 1992 created a benchmark altogether.

What new can one expect from a 155 mins movie that people got to see in 2020 via 10 episodes? Well, nothing much. How much ever one can try, a story which was witnessed by many a few months back will keep on flashing on the mind and end up in comparisons while watching the new movie. The Big Bull is much of a commercialised and filmy attempt on the story of Harshad Mehta which takes the fast local to get to the point in the start.

The film starts with a grand (not really) entry of Abhishek A Bachchan as Hemant Shah but with a little impact. Then it rewinds to him living in a chawl as a salaried man who has a cutesy love story with a girl named Priya Shah (Nikita Dutta). Amid all that, Hemant enters the world of the stock market in an attempt to save his brother Viren Shah (Sohum Shah) from goons as he takes a loan from them. In no time, Hemant mints money by becoming a financial broker and living life out of the stock market. All this happens in a whirlwind that it takes time to get into the rags to riches story vibe.

Abhishek as Hemant Shah based on Harshad Mehta’s life makes a good effort to get into the skin of the character and it’s seen. The good thing about Abhishek is that if given a character sketch the actor nails the part effortlessly. He created a benchmark with Guru which was top notch. In The Big Bull, AB is once again playing a Gujarati man and glimpses of Gurukant Desai is visible in his role as Hemant Shah.

The actor brings his best to the table but the loopholes and loose ends in the screenplay don’t add it up overall. The drawback of the film is dialogues which lack the punch as one can expect from a film like this. 

Not just that, the supporting cast lend less support to the main character as well as the film. Sohum Shah as Viren has shown his best with Tumbbad but fails to create a mark like that in The Big Bull. The same goes for Ileana D’Cruz who plays Meera Rao, a journalist in the film. She is the narrator of the film but is lacklustre. 

Popular character artists like Supriya Pathak and Saurabh Shukla are good in their parts written for them, that’s it. While Nikita Dutta is zeroed only as a pretty face in the movie.

One more thing about Scam 1992 that stayed with the people is the title track. But with The Big Bull, CarryMinati and other artists are zestless.

Although it’s claimed to be ‘inspired by true events’, after watching Scam 1992, fictionalised names of the characters make the film more insignificant. 

It will be tough to accept The Big Bull but ‘try it yourself’ might not hurt your eyes, or it might.

‘The Big Bull‘ Verdict:

The Big Bull is like a raging bull in a china shop, read a careless attempt of recreating Harshad Mehta story on-screen for the second time.