Emotion filled ‘Kutumb’ turns a family entertainer
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Rating: na
Banner: Great Maratha Entertainment LLP Producer: Aniruddha Deshpande, Medha Manjrekar Director: Sudesh Manjrekar Story, Screenplay: Mahesh Waman Manjrekar Dialogues: Pravin Tarde Music: Ajit Parab, Sameer Mhatre, Abhijeet Kawthalkar Cast: Jitendra Joshi, Gauri Ingwale, Veena Janmkar, Mihir Soni, Siddharth Jadhav, Manasi Naik, Vaibhav Mangale, Bhalchandra Kadam, Prabhakar More, Sandeep Redkar, Sagar Karande, Shreeram Pendse, Ravi Sangwai Movie Review by: Ulhas Shirke |
Our Administrators say that the country is showing growth. Now, whose growth they are describing, that only our Prime Minister can explain. 70% of India’s population live in villages. They are either involved in farming or are doing labour work. Very few are self employed. Anyone who has struggled with poverty, knows how extremely expensive it is to get medical treatment, while suffering from serious ailment. Mahesh Manjrekar’s latest film ‘Kutumb’ revolves around one such family from a village Bhor in Satara district.
Namdeo and Ganga Solkar (Jitendra Joshi and Veena Jamkar) are happily married husband and wife with two school going children Laxmi (Gauri Engawale) and Subhan (Mihir Soni). Namdeo works as a Gardner in a bungalow in a nearby town and also does odd jobs to meet the demands of his children; be it a Pen drive of PC for his daughter or a Bicycle for his son. He wants to see them happy. But, when the back problem of his wife worsens and she is advised to undergo immediate operation, then comes the real test for him to raise money. Family neighborhood friend and School bus operator Magic Mamu (Siddharth Jadhav) and his wife Saira (Manasi Naik) come to their rescue; but, that’s not enough. Namdeo has to borrow additional money from the Moneylender on interest.
While Ganga is hospitalized, the children live with Magic Mamu and they raise money by performing dance at a local show in a nearby town and win a prize. But, Namdeo does not approve the idea. He beats up his children and insults Magic Mamu for encouraging his children into such an act, which relates to his past life. When Namdeo himself has to undergo a major operation, the children have no other option, but to take part in a dance reality show, with the help of Mamu Magic and his wife, to win a big cash award. With ups and downs in the life of Solkars, finally it is happy end.
Director Sudesh Manjrekar does a good job to expand what ‘De Dhakka’ had left behind. With Mahesh Manjrekar himself being in charge of story and screenplay, the film has successfully converted an emotion filled script into a family entertainer. Iranian film director Majid Majidi seems to have left a strong influence on the director, while describing the village life and struggle of the poor family to meet hospitalization expenses. Looking at the demand for dance reality shows in our state and the talent displayed by kids , the link has been cleverly knitted with the children’s concern about the health condition of their parents and raising the money for the same.
All the characters have been cleverly placed in the screenplay. Jitendra Joshi bears a realistic look of a hardworking Namdeo. He has worked very hard through his body language. As Ganga, Veena Jamkar is a perfect choice and is very impressive in that role. Both the children have been chosen for their dancing skills required by their characters; but, they have performed very well in many emotion filled sequences too. As Magic Mamu, Siddharth Jadhav impresses, while Manasi Naik gets her dues after a long time, to perform an emotion filled role. Among the other character artistes, Viabhav Mangale as cunning moneylender and Bhalchandra kadam as a comedian have done well. There is not much to do for Music direction team of Ajit Parab, Sameer Mhatre and Abhijeet Kawthalkar, as most of the songs are record dances on original popular songs like, ‘Kombadi, ‘ Baygo baygo’ and others.
Photography by Ajith Reddy is good, capturing the real beauty of a picturesque village. Some of the dialogues are timely. There are many predictable happenings in the film, with screenplay giving a hint of the same on many occasions. But, the presentation of the same makes a big difference to make it entertaining.
‘Shahanpan Dega Deva’ – performance oriented film
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Rating: na
Presenter: Great Maratha Entertainment Company Pvt. Ltd. Producer: Twinkel Group & Mirah Entertainmetn Pvt. Ltd. Direction: Sudesh Manjrekar, Atul Kale Screenplay: Abhijeet Deshpande, Mahesh Manjrekar Camera: Ajit Reddy Music: Ajit- Sameer Cast: Bharat Jadhav, Ankush Choudhary, Sanjay Narvekar, Vaibhav Mangale, Siddharth Jadhav, Kishore Kadam, Santosh Juvekar, Kamlakar Satpute, Manva Naik, Kranti Redkar and Mahesh Manjrekar. Movie Review by: Ulhas Shirke |
Known for his Police detection stories, writer Shrikant Sinker had also written in the past a play ‘Aaliya Bhogasi’ based on a team of mentally unstable people in a mental asylum, who only think of their past profession and enact their skills all the time. Producer Mahesh Manjrekar, perhaps got inspired with that play, while projecting his characters through his new film ‘Shahanpan Dega Deva’, which also revolves around 5 such mentally unstable characters( Bharat Jadhav, Siddharth Jadhav, Ankush Choudhary, Vaibhav Mangale & Sanjay Narvekar), who are being treated in his own way at a private Mental asylum by Dr. Subodh ( played by Mahesh himself) , attached to that asylum.
Mr. Manjrekar known for his offerings on sensational subjects, this time thought of moving into comedy and hence selected this performance oriented film with the sole motive of entertaining the audience. Directed jointly by Atul kale and Sudesh Manjrekar, the producer has himself got involved into the screenplay and dialogues in the company of Abhijeet Deshpande and Sanjay Pawar. There is nothing much seriously happening into the screenplay, except for theose mischievous acts by the five characters , which only encourage competition among themselves. It only looked like that the directors had during the pre-interval stage had given complete freedom to them, resulting into overacting by atleast two characters.
It was only after interval, it gave an impression that the director duo had taken total control of the film. The happenings in the film clearly indicate that each character had his own share to display talent under a given situation, which was nothing but pose mentally disturbed and perform an act to look more natural in that condition. And, this experiment succeeds only to a certain extent in post interval session comprising of 55 minutes.The film does not pay much attention on the past history of these characters, except for Bharat Jadhav, whose past incidence has been shown for proving him mentally unstable. The total length of film is just nearing two hours, a perfect length, as further extension would have certainly taxed the audience.
‘Shahanpan Dega Deva’ is a male dominated film, as the three girls namely Manva, Kranti and Poorva play just show pieces and have been rightly used in the climax scene as item girls. Manva makes her appearance just at the stroke of interval, while Kranti comes in almost towards the end of the film. Most of the scenes in the film are based on ‘mind act’ done by each character and among them Sanjay Narvekar invites all the attention for his cricket gimmicks that go very well with his body language. His character also springs a surprise in the climax, thus turning him into a real hero.
Watching the performances of other artistes, Bharat Jadhav, Vaibhav Mangale, Ankush Choudhary and Mahesh Manjrekar himself are all within their limits, except for Siddharth, who has been controlled in the second half, avoiding dialogues for him. Kamlakar Satpute, playing the gay Don is just fine; nothing exceptional about his performance, as we have seen such characters on the screen in the past. Since the film has Bollywood flavour, he reminds you of Kulbhushan Kharbanda in ‘Shaan’, but doesn’t look dangerous. Among the three doctors from the asylum playing villains, Kishore Kadam is impressive. Others in the supporting cast have done well, but Santosh Juvekar has been wasted in that ordinary looking side role.
There isn’t much scope for music in the film, except for the so called item number in the climax, where lavani has been performed in a different style. The background music sounded loud pre interval, but has been used well in the later part of the film. Cinematography by Ajit Reddy is good . The film is likely to impress the kind of audience who enjoy watching TV shows like ‘Comedy Circus’ and ‘Fu bai Fu’, as this film is based only on performances to entertain the audience with a given theme.