Kuku Mathur Ki Jhand Ho Gayi : Feel-good entertainer
Delhi is a new favourite backdrop for Bollywood which is in search of different flavours and stories. It not only offers different visuals but also offers different dialects of Hindi. It also gives way to portray new type of quirky characters. Do duni chaar, Band Baja Barat, Delhi Belly, Fukrey and many more movies used this opportunity and succeeded. This week’s release “Kuku Mathur Ki Jhand Ho Gayi” also presents the characters and story from this region.
Balaji Telefilms’ ALT Entertainment, being true to its name and aim of presenting alternate entertainment, again supports and presents a film with all newcomer actors and non mainstream storyline.
Story by Vijay Kapoor and Aman Sachdeva is a about two teenager friends Kuku Mathur (Siddharth Gupta) and Ronnie Gulati (Ashish Juneja). Kuku is devastated when he knows that his life till now was rocking because of his friend Ronnie who is a businessman’s son. When Ronnie gets busy in his own business of Matching Cloths Centre, Kuku comes to know that his own life is very uninteresting and full of struggle. With turn of events, he develops animosity against Ronnie and his family. Under influence of these bitter thoughts, which are further fuelled by his cousin, Prabhakar (Amit Sial), Kuku takes an action which brings the twist in the tale. What happens there after is the story of the film.
Story is little different and few characters too are unique and quirky. However, screenplay seems little bit stretched even after the film is below 2 hrs. Still there are few scenes and gags which shows the spark in writing and dialogs too are good and use of local dialects by different characters add to the authenticity of the scenes.
Director Aman Sachdeva shines in few scenes like Prabhakar’s Story about how he took revenge of his friend who stole his girlfriend and later when he gets hit by the door repeatedly. The director also succeeded in extracting good performances from his newbie cast. Only thing he could have done better is trying to make the movie faster with the help of his editor Bakul Matiyani. Overall, we can expect better work from Aman in future.
Performance wise, Siddharth Gupta as Kuku Mathur looks the part of the vulnerable, gullible and clueless teenager. Ashish Juneja as Ronnie also does justice to his role. Though both of their age does seem more for 12th pass students, they do fair job in portraying the characters. Another actor who leaves impression is Amit Sial as Prabhakar. Alok Chaturvedi and Roopa Ganguli as the guard of the godown and his wife, does impressive job. Brijendra Kala is able to bring out good laughs while essaying a character similar to Nirmal Baba.
Shazia Zahid has done fine job in Production Design which recreates the lower middle class environment. Cinematographer Uday Singh Mohite captures it beautifully. Background score by Amar Mohile is good though the film lacks in good songs. If it had 1-2 good chartbuster songs, it would have got more footfalls in the cinema hall. Balaji Production excels in bringing in another product which is focused on story telling sans any stars. There is no other way such actors will get any chance.
Overall, Kuku Mathur Ki Jhand Ho Gayi is a sweet little entertainer which leaves a feel good taste when you are out of the theatre.
Recommendation : I recommend it to the audience who likes stories set in realistic and different environment with tiny little world of its own. If you do not want to watch the heavy on emotion CityLights, this can be your choice for this week.
