Review : Khatta Meetha

Khatta Meetha

Director : Priyadarshan

Writer : Jay Master

Music : Pritam Chakraborty

Cast : Akshay Kumar, Trisha Krishnan, Manoj Joshi, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Aruna Irani

What goes for the film : A surprise gift awaits the first correct answer.

What goes against the audience : The absurdity of Priyadarshan’s insane mind.

Cinemaa Opinion : Neither khatta nor meetha. Calling this kadwa would be an understatement. Scroll down for a detailed review.

Potholes, cacophony & a lie about allergies

Through the promos of the film, Sachin “Jackass” Tichkule promised us a road full of potholes. The same trailers announced that the film is the product of Priyadarshan’s insane mind. The two pointers were enough to give me an idea that this is going to be a tough watch. But little did I know that the potholes would be spread over a marathon distance and the reference to Priyan’s insanity was humbly understated. All in all, Khatta Meetha makes Priyan’s last, Bumm Bumm Bole seem like a Swarovski limited edition masterpiece.

The film is supposedly a remake of a 1988 Malayalam classic starring Mohanlal & directed by Priyadarshan himself. And if the original is indeed a classic as claimed (I haven’t seen it myself), this is an insult to the very practice of remaking films. For Khatta Meetha is poorly scripted, horribly miscast, loudly executed hamfest of a film. In fact, it doesn’t even deserve to be called a film. It’s an assemblage of random incidents sans any connection with most  people shouting as though they were competing in the Muqabla-e-baang in Tere Bin Laden. Its Priyadarshan’s second contribution to Bollywood’s Absurd Wave of 2010.

The film uses Tichkule (Akshay Kumar) as a voice against the corruption in the system but he himself is not above using sub-standard material in the roads he builds or bribing his way through the food chain – that, in spite of a “Gandhian” past (an insult to the philosophy and a scripting sin). One might argue that maybe the cruel world has hardened him but that’s not true. The true reason is the second most ludicrous excuse for a motivation in the history of cinema (the most ludicrous excuse award also goes to Khatta Meetha – Rajpal Yadav’s Rangeela apparently became a naxalite because his dad didn’t buy him an ice-gola. Beat that, KRK!!). And though he has thousands of rupees to pay bribes, he has to beg, borrow, steal and sell to manage petty expenses. He lords over the house in the “comedy” scenes, throwing audacious repartee at will but in the “emotional” scenes, he starts wailing and complaining. Actually, Tichkule doesn’t really have an identity of his own. He just assumes identities as the situation in the film demands. For a political satire to work, the audience needs to relate with the protagonist. And how can we relate to someone who doesn’t even have an identity?

The female lead, Gehna Ganpule (Tichkule’s college flame and now, the Municipal Commissioner) complements Tichkule to quite an extent. While he goes on a Lovesick-Gandhian-Corrupt-Vitriolic-Lovesick trajectory chronologically, she goes on a Lovesick-Pragmatic-Paragon of righteousness-Suicidal-Lovesick one. Though her pangs of righteousness show up only when her ex-flame is around, conveniently ignoring the corruption that happens right under her nose (Manoj Joshi, the leading light of the “bad” guy brigade works in the same office). And she goes all lovey-dovey with the very reason for her suicide attempt even before fully recuperating from the botched bid. Another character in search of a true identity.

For its basic plot, Khatta Meetha employs a medley of repetitive scenes – the Tichkule family going vocally ballistic and Jackass borrowing money from labourers & peons or breaking his head against bureaucratic red-tape. Not surprisingly, even the flab of unnecessary sub-plots is made up of similar stock footage – the leads arguing it out loudly and pointlessly about high ideals, Jackass’ sidekick’s (Rajpal Yadav) voyeuristic tendencies and some drinking scenes involving the “bad” guys. If that wasn’t all, the lead characters’ surnames are thrown in your face – strike that – in your ears every five minutes for supposed “comic” effect. In fact, the repetition starts from the very first scene when you see Akshay Kumar & Manoj Joshi in a Priyan film, soon to be followed by Rajpal Yadav, Asrani and the regular lot of junior artistes.

Added to this repetition and glaring inconsistency is the utter implausibility of the situations that drive the film. A driver is made the fall guy for a collapsed bridge – he confesses to have planted a bomb under a bridge. The last I knew, a kindergarten student in this information age can tell the aftermath of a bomb blast from that of a collapsed bridge. Either that fact escaped the attention of writer Jay Master & Priyadarshan or they assume the audience to have an IQ lesser than 10. How someone can enter a politician’s house unnoticed by the security as well as by the dozen people inside is beyond my comprehension. How a court passes a judgement ordering a Municipality to give an unvalued road-roller to a contractor in lieu of his unpaid bills is beyond anyone’s imagination. A road roller smashing through a compound wall, crossing the compound and bulldozing through the house itself is not slapstick, its nonsense. I can go on like this about practically every scene in Khatta Meetha, but I’d rather spare you the torture I had to go through.

The only funny moments in the film are provided by the veterans Asrani & Johnny Lever, though their presence in the film and these funny sequences don’t have an iota of impact on the film as a whole. Akshay Kumar is clearly trying way too hard. Rajpal Yadav gets yet another role to kill for (kill the scriptwriter, I mean). Trisha is a far cry from the splendid actress I first saw in Vinnaithandi Varuvaya. Kulbhushan Kharbanda is elegant as usual, but his character hardly has any presence. The rest simply ham their way through. A major disappointment was V.Manikandan’s cinematography with the steadycam scenes literally migraine-inducing due to their shakiness. Though Sabu Cyril does a good job in the setup of small-town Maharashtra.

The signals were clear. The film started with catcalls and whistles from the audience but that slowly turned into boos halfway through. There were quite a few walkouts too, something not very common for an Akshay Kumar starrer on opening day. As the end credits rolled, someone shouted louder than Manoj Joshi – “Superflop!” There’s something known as fatigue and a majority of the audience has far passed that stage as far as seeing Akshay Kumar, Rajpal Yadav, Asrani & Manoj Joshi in Priyadarshan’s “comedies”. He might as well let them go. Akshay Kumar needs to do an action film unless he wants to fade off from people’s memories as a Jackass. Rajpal Yadav deserves some better roles. Asrani deserves to retire in peace and the audience doesn’t deserve a shrieking Manoj Joshi. Please do them and us all a favour, Priyan.

P.S. : Random musings on Khatta Meetha

Q – What’s the biggest lie in Khatta Meetha?
A – The song – “I’m allergic to Bullshit”.