Cast- Kapil Sharma, Ishita Dutta, Monica Gill, Kumud Mishra, Edward Sonnerblick, Inaamulhaq, Rajesh Sharma, Anjan Shrivastav
Director- Rajiev Dhingra
Writers- Rajiev Dhingra, Balwinder Singh Janjua, Rupinder Chahal
It Is a light and warm story of a village simpleton who wants to get a job and get married to his love interest, goofs up big time somewhere in the process and then tries to make amends and set things right.
The story is set in pre-independence era of 1920s. It begins with an introductory voice over of Amitabh and immediately you feel the similarity to Lagaan. It also concludes with his voice over.
The movie does open on a pretty impressive note with beautiful authentic set up of little village. the characters, the costumes, the mud houses, the greenery, the Punjabi dialect, the village life, all seem to create a good period feel and look. In fact it also reminded me of Phillauri. Cinematographer Navneet Misser and his frames had a role to play in creating that beautiful picture.
Initially I was pretty impressed with detailing of costumes and sets. The authentic costumes minus the unnecessary bling, the simplicity of marriage ceremony, borrowing of quilts from neighbours ,the gidda ,vegetables lying under the cot in the verandah, all the little details painted sweet image of village life back then.
I loved the music ( Jitender Shah ) which was very folk and melodious. It added to the period feel of the movie. Lyrics had a rustic feel to them. The sound track boasts of brilliant voices of Jyoti Nooran, Daler Mehndi , Sunidhi Chauhan , Shafqat Amanant Ali , Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Mamta Sharma. The impressive list itself should give an idea.
The support cast is very interesting with likes of Kumud Mishra, Rajesh Sharma , Imaanulhaq, Anjan Shrivastav and Jameel Khan .
Kumud Mishra is the despicable Rajah and rest play the village folk. All of them perform well given the bankable actors they are.
Edward Sonnenblick as the bad Angrez was good.
Kapil Sharma as the simpleton was as good as he could be. He compensated for his limited acting abilities with plenty of Kapil-ish charm. Some scenes definitely cried out for some better expressions from his end, but overall he fared much better than expected, as an actor.
Ishita Dutta (last seen in Drishyam) as his love interest looked pretty but had nothing much to do.
Rajiev Dhingra who has written and directed the movie made a neat effort , began on a good note but loses it somewhere down the process.
The first half was slow but engaging and charming with its simplicity. But towards the interval and post that , it started to sag. Seemed like the director writer lost focus and ideas as to how to take it further and keep it interesting . Surprisingly even details like costumes, sets and dialogues started to slip .Those could easily have been ignored as the “ jinx of the second half” but for the extra running time and super stretched sequences towards the end.
Editor Omkar Nath Bakhri was apparently paid to do nothing or the indulgent producer director did not let him do his job.
The setting and plot have quite a lot of inspiration but ended up seeming like a poor version of “Lagaan”.
Had the director made the film a good 20 minutes shorter and tried to get some semblance of logic and quality in the last 30 minutes , the film would have turned out a good one.
But I must say that it was a surprise to get a film of even this level from Kapil, considering his last record of “Kis Kis Se Pyaar Karun “.Let’s give him some credit as a producer.
Overall it can be a time pass weekend watch if you are ready to tone down your expectations, Or if you are a Kapil Sharma fan or if you do not mind your movies slow but charming even if not too great.
Score 5 on 10