Aapla Manus: Review, Cast and Director

Film: Aapla Manus

Cast: Nana Patekar, Irawati Harshe, Sumeet Raghavan

Director: Satish Rajavade

Rating: * * ½

Aapla Manus (Our Man) adapted from a play, Katkon Trikon, that had successful runs in the Hindi and Marathi theatre arena, is Ajay Devgan’s first Marathi Language Production. The film details an over-eager middle-aged cop’s efforts to get a modern couple who has little time for the aged or the young, to face up to the responsibilities they so conveniently overlooked.

Maruti Nagargoje (Nana Patekar) is the chief investigator into the death of Aabha saheb (Nana Patekar), Rahul (Sumeet Raghavan), a yuppie lawyer’s aged father. Rahul’s wife Bhakti (Irawati Harshe) is a teacher and feels her father-in-law is too much of an interfering busybody whose main aim is to alienate her husband and son from her. One day after a staged holiday confrontation in Lonavala, the couple and Aabha return back to their home and the next day Aabha falls to his death. Was it accidental or a suicide or even a murder?

Director Satish Rajavade follows the same theatrical format to drive his theme of moral corruptness amongst generation X home. Unfortunately, it’s not a convincing argument because each character appears to be working up a defence that is entirely premeditated. Also, Nagargoje’s attempts to use selective clues to drive home his assurance that the couple could be held responsible for either suicide or murder doesn’t quite stick.

The tension is entirely missing from the drama because it’s built on such fragile and unsubstantiated suspicion. Vivek Bele’s adaptation is not entirely cinematic or practical enough to work as a thriller. The generation gap, misunderstandings between in-laws and conspiracy by the husband and wife to put Aabha in his place, are shown as developments that are never organic. It’s a little too artificially structured and doesn’t allow for a humanistic response-even to tragedy. The couple never visit the dying old man in hospital until Nagargoje informs them of his status. Curious that! This is at best a half-baked attempt to paint a biased picture of wretchedness and doesn’t quite ring true at all. Sumeet Raghavan and Irawati Harshe battle on valiantly nevertheless while Nana Patekar does the absolute minimum to stay credible!