Rating: na Presentor & Producer: Sakshi Entertainment Director: Mahendra Kadam Story: Mahendra Kadam, Sachin Mote Music: Ajit – Sameer Camera: Rahul Jadhav Cast: Siddharth Jadhav, Paddy Kamble, Megha, Rajan Tamhane, Nikhil Ratnaparkhi, Nandkishor Choughale, Prashant Tapasvi, Yogini Chowk Movie Review by: Ulhas Shirke

Generally, a leading artiste who is also the producer of the film, would want himself or herself to be presented with prominence . The latest Marathi film ‘Superstar’ though speaks about the friendship between two standup clowns (Ranga and Bajya) in a Tamasha party from a village called Parambi, it revolves more around the character of an actress – Megha, played by debutant Megha Dhade, who is also the producer of this film. In the process, she has offered a formula based film. If she were a typical Bollywood producer, she would have said, “Meri film mein action hai, fantasy hain, romance hai, emotion hai aur comedy bhi hai”. In short, as a producer of this Marathi film, she has tried to follow the Bollywood path of 70s and 80s.

In this film, Megha comes across Ranga (Siddharth Jadhav), who is a popular clown from a village Parambi. Ranga along with his dear friend Bajya (Pandharinath Kamble) come to the rescue of a Film unit, in their village, when their main artiste gets delayed and the local crowd gathered in a hall goes out of control. Megha is particularly impressed by the act of Ranga and she along with her unit thereafter get an opportunity to witnesses the rehearsal of his folk art. So impressed is the producer (Rajan Tamhane) that he plans to use their theme for a film. He even agrees to make Ranga the new star opposite Megha and even invites his entire team to join the film.

Bajya is bit hesitant having experienced the tragedy of his mother and aunty in the past but, finally gives his nod. Soon he discovers that his original script is changed for the cinematic presentation and the credit being taken by the director (Nikhil Ratnaparakhi). Not only Bajya but his other group members except Ranga are ill treated by the film’s unit. Ranga being in the good books of Megha and being a hard working ambitious artiste, in fact becomes a darling of the unit.

The film’s director Mangesh Kadam has cleverly used this situation to show the difference when a versatile Tamashaa artiste is made to act in the film. Very cleverly he has shown that the creativity is lost in the process. The film picks up considerably better speed to present the screenplay but the frequent songs added in the film interrupt the process. Music is not bad, but it fails to make an impact after you leave the theatre.

Excluding two songs, the other songs were irrelevant in the film’s Author backed story. Even two of the scenes towards the end have been stretched too long. One can understand about branding of a particular product helping to a certain extent in co-sponsorship; but deliberately asking the leading lady in a scene to go into the vanity van and then displaying the product was almost like shooting an ad film into film; giving an awkward look. As it is there was a feature film titled ‘Parambicha Bapu’ being shot into this film and therefore this ad addition looks like an ad played during a short break. The two and half hour film should have been cut to size two hours instead.

Siddharth Jadhav successfully portrays a crazy village boy who later transforms into a self-assured actor with a pride. But, it is his friend played by Pandharinath( Paddy) kamble, who comes up with a memorable performance. Paddy has different shades in his role and the talented actor has proved that he is not only a good comedian but can be considered for emotion filled serious roles too. Being a debutant, Megha Dhade in the role of an actress has given a satisfying performance. There is no doubt that being a producer herself, she has taken more footage, but in the process there has been injustice to other leading lady Yogini Chouk. In the role of Sukhee, the would be of Ranga and sister of Bajya, she just remains a namesake character serving tea and food to the group. In short, a talented actress of her caliber, who has won the Maharashtrachi Superstar TV award, deserved a better deal. Others in supporting cast, especially the other team members of Ranga-Bajya group have performed very well.

Only other actor who got a better deal in this film is Nikhil Ratnaparakhi. While playing a film director’s role, he has proved that acting makes a big difference while portraying any character. No wonder, today he is the most popular model on television ads. Excellent photography by Rahul Jadhav and wonderful art direction by Mahesh Salgaonkar are the two highlights of the film. Overall, the film is filled with good dialogues by Sachin Mote , but some of them were repeated.

Although Superstar sells dreams to village folks with a captivating plot, a more gripping screenplay and clever editing could have made a big difference.