Film: Mansukh Chaturvedi Ki Atmakatha
Cast: Sandeep Singh, Monika, Anamika Shukla, Sikander Khan, Megha, Shalini Chauhan
Director: Sachin Gupta
Rating: *
A rather loud, whiny toned escapade into one small-town-man’s diatribe, this so called ‘bio’ visit to Etawah, where a delusional Mansukh believes he is the town’s most valued heart-throb and therefore stands a chance to make Bollywood his own, is unintentionally hallucinatory.
The plotting is off, totally. Mansukh (Sandeep Singh) begins his day whining about how important he is to the Ram-Leela program in his town and how his Bollywood dreams are being stunted by a father trying to ground him in reality. But neither the father, nor Mansukh play it in the right form. The dialogues don’t connect and the direction is clueless.
And to top that, Mansukh’s delusions about being important get thrown out of the window when his expectations of becoming Ram gets whittled down to being almost insignificant. Mansukh’s girlfriend Munni and his Mausi come into focus for brief spells but their attachment to an irritating and obtuse, ungrateful Mansukh is inexplicable.
The film was meant to be a comedy but it’s hard to find anything funny in the exasperating, incessant drone of an adult male who never quite grew-up to be a man. Neither the actors, the director nor the technical team know what they are doing here.