‘The Big Bull’: Abhishek Bachchan’s  best performance to date

Here is what I can tell you about the  Abhishek Bachchan starrer ‘The Big Bull’ film right now. It is an outright winner and would  have been a hit  were it released in movie theatres.

It is  nothing  like Hansal Mehta’s brilliant Scam 1992 , the OTT sensation from 2020 which  was also based on the life and crimes  of  superstar-stockbroker  Harshad Mehta.  The Big Bull is completely different in content, intent and tone. Since it’s a two-hour  film it is far  more compact  and moves through the  various  incidents  in  Harshad Mehta’s life at the speed of sound.

Abhishek Bachchan who plays the pseudo-Harshad (Hemant Shah) has never been in better form. As the  impetuous over-ambitious stock broker who shook Dalal Street, Abhishek is every bit the Gujarati stockbroker. Neither overdone nor too understated his Harshad Mehta, sorry Hemant Shah is pitch-perfect.

It would be no exaggeration to  say that Abhishek’s Hemant Shah does to Harshad what Pratik Gandhi’s Harshad Mehta did in Scam. Both bring the scintillating character to life. But in completely different ways. Gandhi and  Bachchan play Mehta in two different sur and ragas.

If you’ve seen Applause Entertainment’s game-changing  Scam (and who hasn’t) you would know that besides Pratik Gandhi, the supporting cast was superb. Likewise in  Big Bull.  Watch out for Ram Kapoor and Sohum Shah as Harshad/Hemant’s father and brother.