Arshad Warsi is doing double duty on screen this week, and that's the whole engine of Jeevan Ya Bheema Con?

The film opens at a prayer meeting for a man called Bheema, attended by his wife Yojana, played by Sanjeeda Shaikh, and Yashika, played by Pooja Chopra. Standard mourning scene. Except right after the cremation, two men named Vinayak and Manu, played by Vijay Raaz and Brijendra Kala, show up at the house and find Bheema very much alive.

From there it's a whodunnit that keeps circling back on itself. Vinayak and Manu insist Bheema was part of their crew and is sitting on diamonds worth Rs 20 crore. Yojana doesn't buy it at first. She's forced to reconsider as the plot keeps peeling back one layer after another about who her husband actually is.

The film needs you to see it to understand why Warsi is credited for a dual role, and that reveal is really the whole draw here. According to Free Press Journal's review, it isn't his best work but it's endearing enough to carry the film. Shaikh matches him well as his partner in crime, though the review notes she stumbles in a few scenes. Chopra, per the same review, brings the oomph but could do with sharper emotional range.

Vijay Raaz, Brijendra Kala and the late Atul Parchure round out the veteran bench, and the review says they light up their scenes without doing anything you haven't seen from them before. Parchure's presence in the credits is a reminder of the loss for the industry.

Abhishek Dogra directs, his first outing after films like Dolly Ki Doli, and the review is lukewarm on the craft. There's spark in how he sets up the con, but Free Press Journal says the script, co-written with Vivek Verma and Mukta Bhatt, drifts in the back half, which apparently drags. The dialogue by Meghvrat Singh Gurjar and Verma doesn't land with the punch you'd expect from a Warsi-Raaz pairing, and the review flags the cinematography as average and the music as forgettable.

So where does that leave Jeevan Ya Bheema Con? On a Friday crowded with bigger conversations, from Mirzapur: The Movie to Gandhari. Free Press Journal's verdict is blunt: fans of Warsi and Shaikh should catch it, everyone else won't miss much skipping it this week.

Whether that's enough to hold a screen through a second weekend is the number to watch next.