The Hindu : Karnataka News : A test of patience

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Saturday, Jun 14, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka

A test of patience

Mere Baap Pehle Aap

Cast: Om Puri, Akshaye Khanna, Paresh Rawal, Genelia

Director: Priyadarshan

Many summers ago Mahendra Kapoor sang “Badal jaye agar mali chaman hota nahin khali, baharen phir bhi aati hain, bahare phir bhi aayengi”. Truer words were seldom written about a second stirring. Not many understand the joy and the pain of a man looking to start it all over again on a clean slate.

Not the least among them is Priyadarshan who pours such ridicule, such scorn on a man starting late that his film “Mere Baap Pehle Aap” becomes a test of patience.

Agreed, it is a comedy and we should be willing to suspend reason, even keep a little distance from sensitivity. We, the uncomplaining cinemagoers, could have pardoned Om Puri with his ugly wig and a dance number, had the director not been so relentless in his mockery.

Here his 50-year-old man never seems to find logical ways of finding a mate. Now dancing with a bikini-clad Mumait Khan, now entering college only to be ridiculed for venturing to see a girl thus.

Add to that the cruel case of a son dominating a father — Akshaye Khanna and Paresh Rawal. The former is so belligerent, uses every conceivable word of condescension towards his father, that he only stops short of physically inflicting violence on the helpless old man.

ZUS

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