Rating: ★★½ Genres: Comedy Drama Censor: U Duration: 130 min. Studio/presenter: Studio 9 Entertainment Producer(s): Ashutosh S. Raaj Director: Ashutosh S. Raaj Music:  Samir Saptiskar, Vivek Sanap Writer: Ashutosh S. Raaj Cinematographer (DOP): Vijay Mishra Cast: Bharat Ganeshpure, Sagar Karande, Abhijeet Chavan, Arun Kadam, Nikhil Wairagar, Ashutosh S Raaj, Girija Joshi, Manasi Naik Movie Review by: Ulhas Shirke

Now days, we find many new directors attempting to offer something to Marathi cinema, in the name of comedy. However, in the new film ‘Jalsa’ we find the director Ashutosh S Raaj playing multiple roles as a film maker, an actor and also a writer, to offer this so called traditional comedy through his film.

Actually, ‘Jalsa‘ is the story of two youngsters Amar Patil ( Ashutosh S Raaj) and Prem Patil ( Nikhil Wairagkar) who are passionate about directing a film. Amar who is from a well to do family, becomes so desperate that he borrows money from people in their neighborhood and when he cannot repay the same, his father ( Mohan Joshi) drives him out of his house. Amar along with Prem then finds shelter in the house of his maternal uncle Bhaiyyasaheb ( Bharat Ganeshpure) in a village , where both of them find an opportunity to stage a play based on the old classic drama ‘Ekach Pyala‘ with local artistes, their two girlfriends ( Girija Joshi & Shital Ahirrao) and their Uncle, who is also an actor expert in performing the female roles .

The film’s screenplay literally drags in the first half, with most of the time wasted in showing all the important male characters consuming hard drinks and uttering all the non sense, by taking the audience for granted. Especially, the character played by Arun Kadam is shown drinking almost in all the long scenes to his share. The characters played by Sagar Karande, Abhijeet Chavan, Mohan Joshi have been wasted in this film. More scope has been given to TV comedian Bharat Ganeshpure, but his character hasn’t been developed properly, in the company of too many artistes, including the two youngsters played by director Ashutosh S Raaj himself , Nilhil Wairagkar, their two girlfriends Girija and Shital with their love stories etc. The much talked about ‘Bai Vadyavar…‘ song picturised on Manasi Naik has turned out to be the title song of the film shown at the beginning part of this film.

The director has been able to present only the last 15- 20 minutes of the film with some real comedy drama. Otherwise, the rest of the film fails to appeal, for presenting not so interesting plot and a poor screenplay. The film ‘Jalsa‘ may appeal only to some of the village folks, who are fond of local based entertaining plays. But, for real sensible Marathi film lovers, this film is a big disappointment. However, good art design by Vaibhav Shirolar and sound design by Manoj Mochemadkar and Sandeep Madkholkar are the only technical plus points of the film. Music by Samir Saptiskar for the two songs in this film is just fine. In short, ‘Jalsa‘ offers just an average comedy.