Hawkeye :: Murali’s Blog

I finally managed to catch the supposed ‘must watch’ movie of the season ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai‘, a much-waited sequel to the popular movie ‘Munnabhai MBBS‘. I had been primed quite lot by my wife, who saw the movie last weekend, she raved about the movie, its humour as well as the message, the tounge in cheek comedy of Circuit and so on. A few others that I met state that they would not mind watching it a few times

Such hype / popular liking, in recent time is quite rare for a movie. I had seen the first version in bits and pieces and all said and done, I did like it for its own queer style, Sanjay Dutt’s ability to play a comic role despite his body language telling us otherwise and ofcourse the stellar performance of Arshad Warsi as Circuit

So, Lage Raho Munnabhai is a cool movie, that attempts to tell today’s generation of what Mahatma Gandhi was all about and how his principles change Munna’bhai’ style from Dadagiri to Gandhigiri. The storyboard looks good, bits & pieces are a bit painful (in the attempt to be melodramatic). Thought Sanjay Dutt still does not look very comfortable in a comedy role, he does manage to sail along thanks to the efforts of the likes of Circuit and the others in the movie

Divya Balan (as Jhanvi) is a big let down. I thought she had talent (besides a beautiful face), but then, she has to realise that she can pull of a performance just by throwing a sweet smile every not & then. Boman Irani is good, but was much better in the previous movie. And as for the rest, they just pass muster, but for Circuit. This chap literally owned the first half (despite the 2 main protagonists). Unfortunate that Vidhu Vinod Chopra did not give Arshad Warsi the kind of exposure that he should have got in the 2nd half of the movie. His sense of timing, body language, spoken bombaiyya language, style etc etc rock ! This guy will go a long long way in Bollywood !

Net net, the movie is perhaps having an impact on people, certainly in ensuring the people adopt the Munna / Curcuit style (just before the watching flick we were having a bite at McDonald’s and I overheard to the cleaning boys there do a Munna / Circuit style cocnversation). One only hopes, that the impact is deeper and some of the finer meaning of the movie is understood and realised by the masses

Finally, a good flick, lets people know that Oct 2nd is more than a dry day, got me to understand the meaning of ‘Vinamritha’ and has got people pondering about Gandhigiri. Kudos to the team

Lage Raho !

update : I did a Google on Gandhigiri & actually found a forum which discuss Gandhigiri with people quoting samples of how they are observing people change !!!
Trailer on Lage Raho Munnabhai (YouTube)

Uncategorized India, Movies