Humour will keep you hooked
Kapil Sharma, the Superstar TV comedian, managed to get the cash registers ringing with his debut film in 2015, Kis Kis
Ko Pyaar Karoon, so his second foray into Bollywood was expected to be bigger and better given that it was being produced by him and even had a song sung by him. In terms of budget, no doubt, this is a marginally bigger film than the earlier one and it even goes back in time to a period of the past,1920 (mostly sets) to tell its story.
The story begins with a fledgling romance between Manga (Sharma) and Sargi (Ishita) and then veers to having a handful of villagers take on the challenge of outwitting both – Authoritarian royalty and overbearing Englishman. It’s a war waged between good and evil and there’s no in-between here. Director Rajeev Dhingra uses clear cut demarcations to differentiate between his good and bad characters.
As the film is set during the British Raj in India, the Englishmen are shown as rotten, the Indian kings as self-seeking and the poor villagers are unbelievably naïve. Of course, there are other colluders in this nasty network, but they are not part of the subjective here. The focus is largely on the villagers and their fight with the Englishman (Edward Sonnenblick).
It’s about the Rajas not wanting to pay tax and the brownies wanting to outsmart the Goras but it’s not Lagaan. Manga is also unemployed as the story goes. The story may not sound all that attractive but the comedy within is entertaining if not exciting. The rusticity of the setting allows for a certain amount of interest too.
There’s just about enough humour here to keep you engaged. The problem largely lies with the treatment which is typically sophomore stuff and the runtime-which is a trifle overstretched. Kumud Mishra as the Raja with a burgeoning harem and a daughter who claims to have gone to Oxford makes the most of his time on screen. Kapil Sharma is likeable and can do well if he sticks to character studies. In the film he performs like a stand-up with an elongated set of routines – even so it’s amusing!