madanmarwah

The plot in brief is as follows. During their honeymoon a young couple decides in fun to record their private moments in a video CD. To their bad luck it gets stolen causing embarrassment to all. As a cop starts investigating it sets off a chain of anxious and amusing events. Rajkummar Rao and Triptii Dimri play the couple. The movie itself tries to position itself as a full fledged comic caper and almost succeeds. There are a number of hilarious scenes and amusing gags. All characters are caricatures with varying degrees of craziness. An ensemble of comedians like Rakesh Bedi, Archana Puran Singh, Tiku Tilsania, Mukesh Tiwari,Ashwini Kalsekar and Vijay Raaz go all out to create comic situations which are entertaining no doubt. Vijay Raaz once again plays a crazy cop who investigates the case of the missing CD with laughable results.

Director Raaj Shaandilya has made it an entertaining comedy with no questions to be asked on the credibility of the situations. The characters are over the top, crazy and loud most of the time and there are a few raunchy scenes too. The movie is patterned that way. There are references to songs of the past and there is a remix too with Daler Mehndi. All told it provides escapist entertaininment.

Though the movie has everything for which director Vasan Bala is known for, it suffers from a long runtime and over the top climax scenes of a rescue effort. For this reason it definitely cannot be counted as one of his better movies. ( Didn't the director gauge during trial shows that it was too long for comfort? ) I was mighty impressed with his directorial style of " Monica O my darling ". Though this movie's style is also patterned in a similar manner, one gets weary watching the exaggerated and overstreched jailbreak scenes. On the positive side it has an outstanding performance from Alia Bhatt who plays Satya a protective elder sister to Ankur ( Vedang Raina) and who vows to save her younger brother from the death sentence whatever the cost.

Director Vasan Bala uses camerawork and rock background music to give a fast pace to the narrative. His penchant for using Bollywood references throughout is attractively done. So the brother-sister song ( My sister is one in thousands), the yaari song from Zanjeer are used to propel the plot forward in his customery style. There are a few more references. I felt however that this time Vasan has bitten off more than he can chew. After the end of a long drawn climax ( difficult to believe) an unnecessary song by Diljit Dosanjh is added during the end credits. The movie can be cut by around 30 minutes to improve it's overall effect. In the supporting cast Manoj Pahwa plays a retired don to perfection. The antagonist is played impressively by Sikandar Kher.

Neeraj Pandey is one of the finest directors of Bollywood and has made some excellent movies in the past on topical subjects like " A Wednesday " and " Special 26". His style of filming scenes is of a high calibre. So expectations are always high. For some reason his recent movie called " Auron Mein kahan dum tha" was totally disappointing. It appeared that he had lost his touch. Comparitively this movie definitely has his style and with the acting of Jimmy Shergill the narrative is back in form but the smartness and consistency of presentation is missing. The plot deals with the investigation of a diamond robbery where Jimmy is the supercop investigating officer who has had a 100 percentage success record so far and his instincts tell him that he will crack this case too. But this is taken too far and the judge is shocked that remand of 3 subjects is requested only on the basis of the instinct of the IO. The narrative is needlessly non linear, it is uneven ( partly engrossing , partly dragging, partly tension filled). The plot twists were however engaging. All characters are shown grey and the guessing game continues throughout. The two leading characters have rigid fixated agenda which they pursue relentlessly. Are the diamonds a MacGuffin in the plot ?

Director Neeraj puts his signature style in the entire movie particularly in the brisk camerawork and sharp dialogue ( At places). Was the romance really required ? In the uneven state of things everything including direction and acting moves from the ordinary, to mediocre from superficial to lacking in depth. Apparently there is a lack of focus. Jimmy is good in parts and so are Tiwary and Tamannaah. Their work is effected by the not so robust narrative.