Khatta Meetha (2010)

Genre: Crime/Action/Comedy/Drama/Romance


Starring: Akshay Kumar, Rajpal Yadav, Trisha Krishnan, Milind Gunaji, Manoj Joshi

It soon became cliched. Akshay Kumar starring in a comedy movie led to a stereotypical mentality amongst the audience and they knew exactly what to expect; nothing. The above stated 'genre' in this post will make you wonder, is this movie actually different than what everyone thought it to be? Infrastructure is the biggest hurdle for India, the worlds second fastest growing economy. Contractor Sachin Tichkule (Kumar) plays the role of the average construction engineer who dilutes construction material to create sub-standard roads and tries to earn money. Due to his sub-standard construction, the municipal department has refused to pay his cheques. Sachin's family hates him and regards him as a worthless and useless liability. His brother and two brother-in-laws, carry out the same work but manage to earn their money by bribing politicians and municipal officers. A bridge created by them collapses and many lives are lost. The brothers convince the family chauffeur to take the blame for the collapse and subsequently murder him. Day after day, Sachin tries every trick in the book to earn some money somehow but does not manage to achieve anything except for disgrace to him and to his family. His estranged college sweetheart, Gehna Ganpule (Krishnan) becomes the municipal commissioner who decides to end corruption and sub-standard construction and bring about some improvements to the town, which means eliminating contractors like Sachin and his brothers. The movie is not the average comedy movie that Bollywood cinema has been throwing up lately. It is a step in a different direction which neatly amalgamates politics and crime with comedy. Akshay Kumar as usual puts on a good laughable performance but sadly he has little support here. Rajpal Yadav seemed like a last moment addition and Asrani's small role is good but has little effect on the movie as a whole. The only two chinks in the movies armour was a plot that felt dragged towards the end and the lack of roll-over-your seat humour. Even the stupid, headache-giving humour was missing. A good attempt by Priyadarshan with a well-thought plot but has tremendous scope for improvement.

Thumbs up: Good plot, nice mix of various genres

Thumbs down: Needs more humour, plot feels stretched 

Rating: 6.5/10