Magar Audience Aasman Se Gir Ke Seedha
Nark Mein Jaati Hai
1 star
Mini Review:
A copy of the Marathi film Ventilator, Khajoor Pe Atke
exaggerates in every possible way bringing down what
could have been a wonderful situational dark comedy to
something unsavory. A brother is about to die, and the
family gathers around to ‘be there’. Each person has his
or her own motives for being there. Alas, instead of letting
the audience decide when to chuckle and when to fall off the
chair laughing, the loud comic sounds and the constant
overacting puts you off.
Main Review:
There’s nothing subtle about this film. There’s no dark comedy
here. There’s only loud acting, ghastly music and comic sounds
that deafen you and blind you to the really, really funny bits in
the film.
The Marathi film Ventilator too had the same story. An older
person is in ICU, about to die, and relatives show up from all parts
rural and semi-urban places, to claim love and hope to inherit the
mango trees in the dying person’s care. In Khajoor Pe Atke, it is
a brother who is in the Intensive Care Unit, and his two brothers
and their oddball families, their sister and her son show up to
offer support to the soon-to-be-widow and her son.
The poster should tell you how exaggerated this film is going to
be. Everyone has googly eyes, everyone speaks as if the rest
of the world is deaf, everyone has strange quirks, everyone
overdoes the small town person wide-eyed in big city thing. If
that is not enough, everyone in the big city is ‘bad’, out to
cheat the out of towners. Or just horrified at these ‘item’ people.
Nikhil Pahwa is Jeetender Sharma, married to Sushila
(Seema Bhargawa). They have two kids a son and a daughter
Nayantara (she’s stuck by the Bollywood bug and wants to
be heroine).
Vinay Pathak is Ravinder Sharma, married to Anuradha
(Suneeta Sengupta), and they have a kid. Dolly Ahluwalia is
Lalita Didi who has a grown up son. So these nine people
show up at the hospital where their Debu Bhaiyya is in ICU
and his wife Kadambari (Alka Amin) and son Amol host them
in the waiting area.
The brothers and their wives are hoping that after the brother
dies, they will finally get a share in the ancestral apartment the
dying brother has been living in. They have to bribe the hospital
staff to enter into the ICU at will. Ganpat the hospital chap is
played by Kishore Chougule who has a finger in all the pies (he
can arrange not just the funeral, but the bhajan singers as well
as fake guests at the wake, he knows the local cops and can
rescue the lads after getting them into trouble). Nayantara has
a whatsapp love affair with Rokky Dilwala (a delightful creepy
lad played by Prathamesh Parab) because he has promised her
a role in a movie. The boys are there to stare at girls and want
to experience ‘dance bar’ delights. Kadambari eats non stop.
The dying man’s son has a girlfriend who cannot stop saying,
‘I understand you’. The worst of these ‘eccentric’ offenders is
played by Dolly Ahluwalia who brings a babaji into the ICU to
smear (and feed) ash on the dying brother.
The joy of watching a dark comedy is about doing really horrible
things (like trying to arrange a wedding match for their daughter)
in a straightforward way, as though they were a part of everyday
ordinary life. Kadambari eating in every scene is so brilliantly
done, you wish the rest of the scenes weren’t so exaggerated.
But Vinay Pathak cannot resist his parodying of Amitabh
Bachchan’s Deewar dialog…
Nayantara’s audition is funny, but did it need so much
accompanying cartoonish music? The rented funeral
arrangements are funny because the man isn’t dead yet, but
you wish you did not hear the comic phone ringtone.
You end up not caring about the loud portrayal, the item number,
what happens to the dying brother, the eccentricities, the fact
that this ensemble cast could have been so much funnier had
they not been so loud…
(this review appears in nowrunning dot com)
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