CHEENI KUM, movie review by Mayank Shekhar in MUMBAI MIRROR

Sweet enough!
Mirrior Rating: ***

I don't know if you've noticed Bachchan in some of his television interviews recently, especially ones where he quips to a group of reporters as they repetitively delve into questions he doesn't wish to answer straight, or is tired repeating: the likes of when's his son getting married, the Sonia rift ("raja, runk") etc. Or as it were, a reporter asked him to recall an interesting incident from the shoot of this film.

"Nothing happened, that's the problem. What do you really want to know, tell me," he said, dead-pan expression, casual mock in his famed deep voice, though never quite rude. That's relatively new for a public-figure who's made a living off rehearsed answers for equally rehearsed questions.

It's this innately quiet but biting sarcasm in Bachchan's personality that Balki breezily and brilliantly taps into here. He scores, hence does the film. Tabu, though occasionally odd, jams well almost all the way through.

The romance is hard to comprehend, if not wholly contrived. Why would a reasonably cool and sassy top chef choose not to marry for 64 years of his life? Evidently, he isn't quite opposed to the idea after all. Or why is a 34-year-old Delhi girl, immediately attracted to a sexagenarian Indian Londoner, been single so long? None is hard to believe of course. It's just that we aren't told. As it turns out, we needn't be.

This is not a romantic comedy. It's situational humour strictly by the text-book, where usually two permutations of events are possible.

First, a character may find himself in the unlikeliest circumstance: an old man in lust or love with a much younger girl here; just as a don and his sidekick may find themselves among docs, patients and students at a med-school elsewhere (Munnabhai MBBS).

Second, an interesting character is pit opposite his least likely other; like a rough don who meets Mahatma Gandhi (Lage Raho Munnabhai).

Here, Bachchan's Buddhadev Gupta, a stern but teen-at-heart coolio meets his girlfriend's father, a morose bore six years his junior. He must ask for his daughter's hand too. Paresh Rawal's Omprakash Verma, burdened by age, is a staunch Gandhian but a strict non-vegetarian. He also prefers his whisky with club soda.

The connection between the said actors drip quick-wit and pointed humour. So does the chemistry between Budhadeb and his charming mother (Zohra Sehgal); or Buddhadeb and his terminally-ill kid-friend (Swini Khara). The little girl is sharp. But quick as kids are with instructions, rarely do they let you down. It's the loss of restraint dealing with a terminally ill child that may bother you sometimes: such a manipulatively strong emotion played up in a light-hearted comedy sticks out, while you fumblingly search for intentions.

It's a feat however that you remain non-judgmental over the larger theme that may not otherwise expect you to remain indifferent.

A fan of cinematographer P C Sreeram (Alai Payuthe, Thiruda Thiruda, Mauna Ragam) I met once told me about a standing joke in Chennai that you should carry a torch to watch films shot by him. Sreeram usually shoots incredibly dark, gritty sequences.

Uncharacteristic of his oeuvre, this film appears spotlessly clean and neatly sharp. That could be said of the rest of the Cheeni Kum as well.

There is enough sugar here to keep you going for a while; down it with pleasure.