On the occasion of Abhishek Bachchan's birthday, we revisit Bluffmaster, a 2005 Rohan Sippy film directed by Abhishek Bachchan and starring Priyanka Chopra, Riteish Deshmukh, and Boman Irani.

Abhishek Bachchan has given numerous credible performances over the course of his two-decade acting career. These were frequently compared to the box office triumph of his father, superstar Amitabh Bachchan. Bachchan is one of those people who have both benefitted and been harmed as a result of nepotism. While he was given opportunities to resuscitate his career that many others would not have had if they did not come from a filmmaking family, the actor was regularly subjected to unfair criticism, even when he acted with sincerity. When he played conman Roy Kapoor in Ramesh Sippy's production Bluffmaster!, his performance should have been more favorably accepted at the time, but it wasn't.

The 2005 December release, directed by Rohan Sippy, was a well-acted, amusing picture with a cast that includes Sanjay Mishra, Priyanka Chopra, Riteish Deshmukh, Boman Irani, and Nana Patekar. The story revolved around Roy, who is a conman, unbeknownst to his girlfriend Simi (Chopra). Simi breaks their engagement as she discovers his reality. Roy, who is angry, decides to drink his sorrows away until he meets Deshmukh (Dittu) and Mishra, two fresh conmen. Dittu was out for vengeance against Chandru (Nana Patekar), who had duped his father and left him penniless. In the meantime, Roy learns he has cancer and only has three months to live.

Roy agrees to aid Dittu in the hopes of doing something useful before dying, only to discover that everything up to that point, including his cancer diagnosis, had been a deception orchestrated by Dittu with the cooperation of Simmi. Roy has duped nearly everyone participating in this sophisticated game at some point. Roy eventually realizes his error and turns a new leaf.

The ending is predictable, but only in terms of Roy's change of heart. The rest of it, the entire concept of creating this scam and duping the conman, was well-executed and, while not wholly original, gave the picture a sense of novelty. The fact that the actors were perfectly cast in their roles also helped. Bachchan, in particular, bore the brunt of the responsibility, and he did so with seeming ease. Because the actor, like a conman, was able to carry off the part without seeming to put any work into it, you assumed Roy was a successful con. One of the film's highlights was his chemistry with Deshmukh.

The Vishal-Shekhar soundtrack was a real earworm, with Bachchan even performing one of the songs, "Ek Main Aur Ek Tu Hai." The editing should have been tighter, but despite its length of two hours and 19 minutes, Bluffmaster never felt dragging, which is high praise.

Bluffmaster was written by Sridhar Raghavan, the brother of filmmaker Sriram Raghavan, who cleverly exploited the film's conman conceit. Con films appear thrilling and even simple to make, but in order to make a good one, you must understand the audience's pulse and make them feel involved without dumbing things down. Sridhar's script checked all of the boxes. While Bluffmaster was far from a flop, it earned mixed reviews at the time, which is a shame because it was a good picture that may have received a different reception if it had been released today.