Rating: ★★½ Genres: Comedy Censor: U Duration: 130 min. Studio/presenter: Brahmapura Pictures, Dashami Studioz, Yellow Inc Producer(s): Shailesh Shankar Kale, Rohit Shetty Director: Shailesh Shankar Kale Music: Samir Saptiskar Cinematographer (DOP): Siddharth More Cast: Amey Wagh, Saksham Kulkarni, Aroh Welankar, Pushkar Shrotri, Anuja Sathe Movie Review by: Ulhas Shirke

Till now, we have seen many Hindi films on betting in cricket and how some youngsters are lured to this biggest gambling racket, which is spreading across the country. Latest released Marathi film ‘Ghantaa‘ is also based on this subject with three youngsters Umesh Vaidya( Saksham Kulkarni), Raj Bhosale( Amey Wagh) and Angad Mohite( Aroh Velankar) getting trapped into this racket oraganised by Chintya ( Kishore Kadam) a local criminal.

The film begins with a wrist watch containing mini diamonds delivered through courier to a local criminal turned politician Dighya Bhai( Pushkar Shrotri) .This parcel is delivered by default to a company owned by Sanjay Hegde ( Murli Sharma) a former suspended Police officer involved in encounters with criminals. Angad whose girlfriend Anagha( Shivani Surve) works for Sanjay Hegde’s company , visits this company with his two friends, to convince her over their break up. But, three of them encounter eccentric Sanjay Hegde. Dighyabhai’s men attack Sanjay Hegde to get their diamonds back, but Sanjay is injured, while Dighyabhai’s people are also killed in cross firing by the former sharp shooter.

Amey steals Sanjay’s watch, to get some money, but when the watch breaks, when Angad snatches it, while asking him to return and the tiny diamonds spill over. Amey takes them to his girl friend Komal Bhabhi( Anuja Sathe) , with whom he sleeps, while her Diamond merchant husband is away. She in turn calls an expert known to her, to valuates the diamonds @Rs. 10 lakh each. To sell the diamonds, he calls Dighyabhai, who sends his deputy for the deal. And, the youngsters are once again in trouble. The film concludes with not so impressive climax.

With so many characters, with some more played by renowned artistes like Viju Khote, Kanchan Pagare, Kishore Chougule, Abhijit Chavan, Arun kadam, late Razzak Khan and few others , the film has a big crowd, with almost no scope given to good artistes like Viju Khote, Abhijit Chavan and late Razzak Khan . The first half of the film is not at all impressive and fails to pick up, till the interval. In the post interval stage, there are few interesting moments, but they are all inspired by some Bollywood films. Some vulgar double meaning dialogues have been used to generate humour; but the film fails to take a firm grip on screenplay. The director has tried some animated and special effects even in one song picturised on three lead artistes, so as to be different from others, but that’s not enough to present a good package. Music is also just average.

The three lead artistes Amey, Saksham and Aroh have played their respective roles convincingly. Anuja has played a bold character for a change. Pushkar Shrotri is very much at ease playing a typical politician with criminal background, but Murli Sharma is more impressive. He seemsto have improvised his Marathi with his fluent and confident looking dialogue delivery. Some good comedy comes from a TV Marathi artiste playing the Gujarathi character, who is assistant of Pushkar Shrotri. Surprisingly, his name does not appear in the credit list provided by the makers of this film.

All in all, ‘Ghantaa‘ has turned out to be neither a family entertainer, nor a sensible film to fit into quality Marathi film. All that it offers is a casual adult comedy .