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March 6, 2010

Atithi Tum Kab Jaaoge - this one overstays its welcome by a bit!



Ashwini Dhir's second directorial venture, Atithi Tum Kab Jaaoge is touted as a laugh riot and worthy successor to Hrishikesh Mukherjee's family oriented comedies. It turns out to be neither of those. However it is a languid comedy well suited to family audiences and fairly engaging for the most part. Puneet (Devgan) and Munmun (Konkona Sen Sharma) live in Mumbai in a flat and have one kid. The Hindi teacher at school admonishes the parents for not having imparted any "sanskriti" to their child as the kid does not understand the meaning of Atithi Devo Bhava! And an atithi finally does show up at their door - it is Chachaji from Gorakhpur! He draws a convoluted connection to Puneet and settles into their home. The comedy consists of his taking everything for granted, his following the maid around as she cleans to make sure not a speck is left behind, his frequent loud relieving of flatulence, stringing his washed clothes everywhere. The jokes are repeated until they begin to fall somewhat flat, and this includes the Sholay dialog "Kitne Admi thay?", which ends in Puneet losing a lucrative scriptwriting assignment. There is a hilarious take on Bedi Jalayle, which gets turned into a rocking bhajan to Durga maa! The humor is not slapstick enough, and falls far short of subtle or satirical.

Paresh Rawal shines as Chachaji even though this is not a unique role but one he plays in almost every film, making it predictable to the core. Sanjay Mishra is funny as the watchman. Ajay Devgan is competent, he seems to have mastered the art of comedy that consist of him playing a hapless man caught in the middle (something he did in All The Best too). Konkona is decent.....

Read more HERE

5 comments:

Khanabadosh said...

Couldn't agree more. After sometimes it gets repetitive. It is a decent movie but I don't think it will susutain.

Pardesi said...

Thanks Khanabadosh, I am glad you agree. This could be a prefect one hour TV short, keeping all the funniest gags pithy with few repeats. It is well intentioned and it is NOT BAD at all.

Khanabadosh said...

"It is well intentioned and it is NOT BAD at all."
Agree there.

Neo said...

thanx for the review . but i dont know what as point of going to diff website for just 2 lines :P

Pardesi said...

Hahaha Neo - maybe there will be more there later on.

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