Tuesday, May 22, 2018
Khajoor Pe Atke
Ham Fest
If Harsh
Chhaya wanted to take an idea from the award-winning Marathi film Ventilator, he should have simply remade
it, instead of turning into a broad, mostly witless, insensitive farce.
When
Jeetendra (Manoj Pahwa) gets a midnight call about his brother’s
hospitalization, he drags his wife (Seema Pahwa) and two kids (Sanah Kapur,
Mayur More) to Mumbai supposedly to help, but actually to keep track of their
family’s flat that the brother had been occupying. He tries to prevent the
other two brothers and a sister from coming too, and makes much of spending on
airfare. The younger brother Ravindra (Vinay Pathak), cancels work meetings and
takes his wife (Suneeta Sengupta) and son to Mumbai, more to keep up
appearances. The hysterical sister Lalli (Dolly Ahluwalia) lands up too and
sends the hospital staff into a tizzy.
The comatose
brother’s wife (Alka Amin) is binge-eating out of stress and his son, Alok
(Vicky Arora) trying to make sense of the chaos of his “item” family. It’s
clear right from the start that nobody really cares about the ill brother, but
Jeetu’s hypocrisy is gold-plated.
Some
situations are believable—like first timers to Mumbai wanting to see a star’s
bungalow on the way to the hospital, go sightseeing, or try to fix a
matrimonial alliance in the hospital waiting area, but mostly the situations
are either clichéd or exaggerated. Even the talented cast hams—only Alka Amin
manages to pitch her performance right. Boys wanting to check out a dance bar
is somewhat plausible, but which girl would be stupid enough to think that a
lowlife chat buddy Rokky Dilwala (Prathamesh Parab) could make her a “heroine”
in films; too much time is wasted on this track.
What the
family goes through is tragic—not knowing over a tense two weeks, if the
brother will survive or die; so the humour should have been dark and tinged
with sorrow, not so obviously over the top. It is admittedly a tough balance,
that Ventilator achieved.
The worst
thing a comedy can do is poke the viewer in the eye, and shout, “Look how funny
this is!” Most of the time, it isn’t!
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