Action with entertainment has always been the formula of most of successful Bollywood film makers like Prakash Mehra, Manmohan Desai and Subhash Ghai between 70s and 90s. Thereafter the Bollywood saw a change with some new themes supported by technology. On the contrary our Marathi film industry saw the traditional comedy changing into good subject based sensible films. But, 4 years ago Riteish Deshmukh who made his debut in Marathi, brought the old Bollywood formula of action combined with lost and found drama into Marathi, through his film ‘Lai Bhari‘. And, it worked well, as the young audience in particular, liked his action filled fights of the hero with bad men and also his style of dialogue delivery.

Now, Riteish Deshmukh has attempted one more such formula film packed with action and entertainment in the form of ‘Mauli’. Since this is not a sequel of ‘Lai Bhari‘ you can call this ‘Mauli‘ a distant cousin of Mauli of ‘Lai Bhari‘. This new Mauli ( Riteish Deshmukh) also has his past filled with lot of emotion filled happenings during his childhood, shown in flashback with some scenes picturised on his mother in distress played by actress Girija Oak. That’s how we get introduced to film’s protagonist Mauli a Police Inspector with 6 years of service and having seen 3 transfers. After landing as in charge of a small village in Maharashtra, he comes across a toughest mafia of land, distillery and water tankers- Nana Londhe ( Jitendra Joshi) whose men beat him up during their first meeting. But, soon we find a lot of change within him, with the encouragement received from his lady love from the village Renuka ( Saiyami kher) and a tea vendor Siddharth Jadhav. Time comes when he takes on all those gang members of Nana one by one to establish himself as the new hero of the village.

This is a limited story, but director Aditya Sarpotdar known for his successful films like ‘Classmates‘ and ‘Faster Fene‘ has tried his best to present a formula based action film well suited to his hero Riteish who has tried to offer some variety through his performance . ‘Mauli‘ is totally male dominated film with more fight scenes filled with violence, leaving less time for director Aditya Sarpotdar. Same is the case with lead actress Saiyami Kher, finds limited scenes to display her acting skills. She is however given some importance in the climax. She seems to be a perfect choice for that role. Siddharth Jadhav also finds restricted scenes though he tries to bring in some humour into this film. Among the character artistes Shrikant Yadav, Usha Naik & Girija Oak find some scope to display their skills. Genelia D’souza makes guest appearance in a ‘Holi‘ song as expected, but this time Riteish has not invited any Bollywood stars in guest appearance.

Technically it is a well made film, with good cinematography by Amalendu Choudhary . Drone cameras have been used very well to capture aerial photography. Special effects are almost on par with any big budget Bollywood film. Ajay Atul’s music is good but not as impressive as his previous hit films. Repeated slow motion scenes, predictable happenings (except for one twist before interval), are the few drawbacks of this film. If you keep your logical thinking aside, especially while watching those fight scenes, ‘Mauli‘ offers entertainment filled with lot of action for 2 hours 16 mins.