Not mighty enough.

At this point, I’ve seen more Bollywood remakes of Jim Carrey movies than I’ve seen Jim Carrey movies. The latest is God Tussi Great Ho (2008), which lifts its plot almost directly from Bruce Almighty.

Salman Khan plays Arun Prajapati, a somewhat hapless TV anchorman with a grudge against God. Arun’s life is by no means perfect. His retired civil servant father (Anupam Kher) is constantly nagging him to get a nice, steady civil service job, with benefits and a pension. His otherwise beautiful sister (Rukhsar) has thick glasses and pock marks on her face, so no man will marry her. He can’t work up the courage to confess his feelings to Alia (Priyanka Chopra), the woman he loves. And his new series was canceled because of a freak accident in the first episode. Arun takes everything personally, and after every setback shakes his fist at the heavens and demands to know why God is picking on him, even if he happens to be standing next to a beggar at the time. He is, in other words, the whiniest man in the world.

And then Arun meets Rocky (Sohail Khan, Salman’s brother), who gives him something to complain about. Rocky is an old friend of Alia’s, and the new Creative Director of the TV station. He’s also vindictive, petty, malicious, and almost cartoonishly obnoxious. (The idea seems to be that Arun will be more sympathetic if his rival is deeply unpleasant; apparently this is easier than just making Arun less of a self-centered jackass.)

Rocky promptly starts putting the moves on Alia, less out of any actual romantic interest in her than out of spite for Arun. He also sabotages the presentation for Arun’s new show idea, then presents the same work as his own. Arun protests, but the boss (Dalip Tahil) doesn’t believe him, because apparently it’s more plausible that Arun scheduled a presentation but did no work, while Rocky, who wasn’t involved in the project, created a DVD just in case, based on a short description from Alia. Rocky is made host of the show, while Arun is fired and thrown out in disgrace. Once again, he blames God.

The next morning, Arun gets a phone call from a mysterious man offering him a job. He goes to a fancy hotel room to meet his potential employer, who turns out to be God, in the form of Amitabh Bachchan. Arun presents his complaints, which boil down to “Why don’t you give people what they want?” God makes him an offer. He will give Arun His power and responsibility for ten days, which should be enough time for Arun to prove his point. Will Arun squander this divine gift, only to learn a valuable lesson? Yes. Yes, he will.

God Tussi Great Ho isn’t entirely awful; the premise is solid, some of the jokes are good, and Amitabh Bachchan is always worth watching. Bachchan isn’t in the movie at all until halfway through, though, and even then only appears in a few scenes. We spend most of our time with Arun, a character who is not particularly interesting, let alone sympathetic. God is great. This movie? Not so much.