DRIVEL: Rishi Kapoor, Abhishek Bachchan and Supriya Pathak. DRIVEL: Rishi Kapoor, Abhishek Bachchan and Supriya Pathak.
ALL is not well in director Umesh Shukla’s well intentioned, but poorly executed ode to family relationships. From the illogical screenplay to the wasted talents of a good cast, there is nothing to recommend here. Weirder still is local distributor Ster Kinekor’s placement of the film in its Prestige cinemas for the second week run. The reasonably entertaining Brothers only ran for one week before being taken off circuit. Go figure?
Inder is an up and coming musician living in Thailand pursuing his big break in the music industry. Inder’s father had high hopes that his son would join him in the failing family bakery. His father is not an easy person to live with and Inder, after having to endure a childhood witnessing many fights between his parents and his father’s ill treatment of his mother, eventually leaves after his father throws him out after a major altercation. Cut to many years later and Inder is manipulated into returning to India with the promise of wealth.
The only drawback is that the wealth can only be obtained by co - signing legal documents with his father. This turns out to be a ruse as there is no money and Inder is stuck having to help his father in wrangling himself out of a situation with a loan shark. He discovers that his mother has Alzheimer’s and is in an old age home. Tagging along with him on his journey in assisting his father and in the process understanding his parents better is Nimmi, a girl who loves him profusely, despite his negative attitude to love and her.
The screenplay is filled with many scenes which are an insult to audiences and moreover those who suffer from Alzheimer’s. If this film is to be believed, then Alzheimer’s is caused because children do not love their parents. Really? There are so many illogical plot devices, purely designed to carry the story forward. In this day and age, surely Inder could have asked the “lawyer” to email him the documents to be signed. A scan and email later would have saved us all from 126 minutes of poor drivel.
Shukla’s intentions are good. Family relationships are important. But why package it in such an inane manner is beyond me. I could go on about the completely incomprehensible situations including an item musical number that is purely in the film because every Bollywood production must have one.
Save yourself from complete boredom and the urge to leave the cinema. Simply stay away. You have been warned. All is not well.