No people, the strike is still on. But the courageous producers of this film went ahead with releasing this film in single screens and private multiplexes. This might actually be a blessing in disguise for this film. Just think about it, which film would you watch at your nearest Multiplex, had there been no strike, out of "Kameenay" (Shahid-Priyanka), "Kambakht Ishq" (Akki-Kareena) and 99 (Kunal Khemu, Boman Irani, Soha Ali Khan) ? This film is like an oasis in a desert and hence was lapped up by viewers like me.
99 is a movie based in the year 1999. It is like a perfect ODI wherein the first 15 overs and the last 10 overs provide the maximum entertainment. The middle overs just take the story ahead slowly. Writers and directors of this film, Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K have done a great job. They fail to keep the continuity of humor in the middle stages of a film, but considering that this is their debut in bollywood, this film is an achievement.
Sachin (Kunal Khemu) and ZaraMud (Cyrus Broacha) are techno savvy crooks who deal in making duplicate sim cards for the then new technology of cell phones. Rahul (Boman Irani) is an executive who is addicted to gambling and betting. Sachin and ZaraMud get caught in their scam and in an attempt to flee, they total AGM bhai (Mahesh Manjrekar), a small time gangster's car. On the other hand Rahul loses a bet of 20 lakhs to AGM and flees to Delhi. Sachin and ZaraMud owe the car's price to AGM and hence he sends them to fetch Rahul from Delhi. From here begins the main plot and characters come into play to add humor to the plot. How these 3 repay AGM is what the film is about.
The film has a number of humorous jokes referring to the cricket match fixing scandals of that era along with mumbaikar's perspective of Delhi. Those people who like PJ's should really go in for this one. Whether it the giant thug named Dimple getting beaten up by the hero who is half his size or be it the jokes made on Delhi, its outright hilarious. The only drawback is that this movie gets slow in the middle stages.
On the acting front, Mahesh Manjrekar steals the show. His expressions and dialog delivery just cracks you up. He is simply brilliant in the movie. Kunal Khemu and Boman Irani do justice to their roles. Cyrus and Soha are OK. A special mention for Amit Mistry for a funny performance. Vinod Khanna has hardly anything to do.
Music is very dull in the movie. Although it only comes as background scores in the movie, it is not at all catchy.
Directors and writers are the heroes of this film. With the awesome one liners and witty jokes they surely must have caught some attention from the film fraternity.
Rating: *** (Watch it once)
Spoiler: One of jokes in the movies goes like this. A man is watching an ODI and India of the 90s is losing. He goes like, "Yeh log kabhi jeet nahi payenge.. Agar 20 over ki match hoti toh world champion ban jaate.. ", which is hilarious since India did win the 20-20 world cup. For more, watch the movie :).
The makers of this film are former engineers working in the US :)(I think originally from Andhra) They made 'Flavors' a few years back, a crossover film in English. This is their first "bollywood" film :)
ReplyDeleteThats an interesting piece of trivia. I was not aware of that one.. :)
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