Ever since the National Awards was announced, one of the most eagerly awaited movies across the nation is Priyadarshan's "Marakkar: Lion of the Arabian Sea" which was chosen as the best picture. However, its release has been postponed more than a couple of times coz of the pandemic. In the interim, he decided to make a return back to Bollywood after close to a decade with "Hungama 2". So does he still possess the ability to recycle the humour from Malayalam & amuse the audience in the North???
As most of you would have guessed (even if you didn't see the trailer), it is the remake of his own movie "Minnaram" which released in 1994. For the benefit of those who haven't watched the original, Vaani (Pranitha Subhash) lands up in the doorsteps of her college sweetheart Aakash (Meezaan Jaffery) with a baby in her hand, who she claims to be their love child. Aakash vociferously denied such a relation existed, but the more he tried, the more he was proved wrong. So was it indeed his kid???
There is no denying the fact that more often than not, Priyan was proficient in making remakes & crafting it in a manner that it was relevant to the audience that it catered to. However his latest venture doesn't belong to the same category as it felt woefully outdated & the humour that had us in splits earlier, felt forced & failed to flex my cheek muscles except for some stray sequence. None of the technical aspects deserves special mention as they were average at best.
It is always a herculean task to cast artists to roles that were enacted to perfection by iconic actors like Lalettan & Jagathy and that's where the director's capability needs to come to the fore to choose the best talent possible. Though Paresh Rawal was chosen for Jagathy's role, his performance left a lot to be desired since it was surprisingly mediocre. Hence it would be unfair to even compare Meezaan with Lalettan, who tried his best but came across as 'poor man's Ranbir Kapoor'. On the other hand, Shilpa Shetty did a reasonably decent job but it was surprising as to why she chose to do a relatively small role as she was also making a comeback after fourteen years. As for the rest of the cast, Ashutosh Rana (as Thilakan), Tiku Talsania (as Shankaradi) etc. did their parts aptly.
Verdict: It's basically 'Minnaram without polycythemia vera' with a humour level that was relevant more than a decade back. In short, dont bother!!!
Rating: 1.5/5
Regards...Ben
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