You will wish for a sleeker, briefer flick

falo to neutralise his ‘maanglik’ stars; his jokes with his new wife Jaya (Bhumi Pednekar) about Mallika Bhabhi, the buffalo he was married to.

But there’s trouble in paradise. Jaya is a state topper, an ‘angrezi padhi-likhi ladki’, and she cannot make peace with the fact that their house doesn’t have a toilet.

She refuses to be the leader of the ‘lota party’. “Biwi paas chahiye toh ghar me sandaas chahiye,” as Akshay’s character, Keshav, puts it.

Driven by his wife’s determination, and love, Keshav takes on the system, the village and his own Manusmriti-following uberBrahmin father.

Kumar and Pednekar work well together. She is fun as the feisty wife. He is subtle as a loyal, upstanding man caught between tradition and change.

From advising her to ‘adjust a bit because it’s been happening for ages’, he becomes a quiet crusader. At every stage, you’re rooting for this endearing cycle store owner. But as the tale progresses, director Shree Narayan Singh’s film begins to feel less like a hearty entertainer and more like a public service announcement.

Of course, it’s funny. There’s a tip of the hat to Sholay in a marriage proposal scene. Anupam Kher fetches up as an excitable village elder.

The chattering housewives of Mandgaon are hilarious as they swish about oblivious to a world in turmoil around them.

It’s in the second half that things begin to unravel. What began as a father-son tussle escalates into a full-fledged war involving the state. It turns out there’s a scam involved, which the current government is ‘seriously tackling’ (come on!).

Keshav keeps repeating that we shouldn’t expect the government to do everything for us.

The tale has already been told in the first 50 minutes, and there’s another 105 to go.

Watch it for the lead pair, but go in knowing you’re going to wish it were a sleeker, briefer flick.