Andhra Pradesh   

Too loud for comfort

Malamaal Weekly (Hindi)

Cast: Paresh Rawal, Om Puri, Riteish Deshmukh

Director: Priyadarshan

Priyadarshan enters familiar territory, the zone where he knows laugh lines better than those on his palm. Of course, the laughs are aplenty and many enjoy the goings-on often enough for the director to walk away with smugness of a successful attempt written all over. However, the fare here is screechy, loud and almost deafening in the name of boisterousness.

However, do watch "Malamaal Weekly" in these days of real meagre offerings for Hindi film faithful. Why? Simply for Paresh Rawal, who in a rarity towers over all frames of the film. He gets a meaty role, the kind he would gobble up. As the only graduate of a timeless village - wonder, where do the villages of Priyadarshan exist in real India - he is a lottery ticket seller, whose world changes when one day he hits upon a winner.

His facial expressions are a delight and his voice modulation more so. What's more, he has no hang-ups: even as the "hero" Riteish Deshmukh as a penniless domestic help wears the best jeans and jackets in town, Rawal, as a bread earner gets into dirty dhotis and kurtas with the ease of a natural actor.

No pretensions, no excuses, just a performance that stands out for its integrity.

He gets wonderful company from Om Puri. Well, it is the story of a real poor Indian village where one occupant suddenly lands up a lottery of one crore, then dies.

How, the whole village wants a pie of the share is the thinnest of storyline that the director does a good job of concealing. For a major part the laughs work, then in the second half everything drags on and on. Editing is poor, the acting not much better.

ZIYA US SALAM

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