Smile-worthy entertainer

FILM: Poster Boys

CAST: Sunny Deol, Bobby Deol, Shreyas Talpade, Sonali Kulkarni, Randheer Rai, Anuj Chaudhry, Tasha Bhambra, Somesh Agarwal, Samrat Raichand, Elli Avram, Ashwini Kalsekar, Tripti Dimri

DIRECTOR: Shreyas Talpade

Inspired from newspaper reports, this dramedy about 3 men fighting the system to save their honour (that was sullied by public Service Advertising run by the State health department) is a spritely sequence of incidents that provide the audience with light-weight fun and harmless entertainment.

Targeted at the family audience craving to engage with ideas that don’t always lead to long drawn out, loud, cantankerous wedding celebrations, this film basically recaps the entire run of the original Marathi hit, also directed by Shreyas Talpade.

In a series of unrelated incidents, Ex-Army man, 50 something, Jaagavar Chaudhary (Sunny Deol) finds himself at a loss to understand why he is being blamed for his sister’s nuptials getting cancelled. Timid schoolteacher and father of two girls, Vinay Sharma (Bobby Deol) has to hear a tirade from his incensed wife Surajmukhi (Samiksha Bhatnagar) and he is clueless as to why she is so angry and last but not least, Psychedelic local hero Arjun Singh (Shreyas Talpade) finds his suit to Ria (Tripti Dimri) being rejected out of hand for no reason he can understand.

The three then see the poster on the back of the bus featuring themselves, exhorting the public to go for sterilization and the bell rings. The three realise why they are being vilified. Now to find out who the real culprit is and how to find a way out of this sticky soup.

This may not be an intelligent comedy but it’s a fairly entertaining one. The sense of fun prevails throughout, with the men encountering hurdles every step of the way from their bitter better halves as well as the lax, careless administration. Shreyas Talpade has flair, Sunny Deol has bounce and Bobby is the stiff neck.

The ladies have little to do other than cry shrilly or put on the hurt look. The script has humour and frivolity in good measure and the performances are generically made-to-order. References to Dharmendra, Damini, Soldier etc add more weight to the comic elements assembled here. Messages are put forth in a pleasant acceptable manner allowing for frivolous engagement minus the burden of expectation. This is a film promoting vasectomy while having its characters multiply away happily. Weird and funny, if you ask me!