Film Review: Mere Dad Ki Maruti

Starring : Ram Kapoor, Saqib Saleem Directed by Ashima Chibber Rating: *** ? For crying out loud! These characters are LOUD, man!! Really really loud. Everyone talks at the top of their lungs and quite often, at the same time. So we end up listening to more conversation, topped with aggressive background music, than our ears could normally accommodate. Welcome to the world of a big fat North Indian wedding. Anything can happen here. So be warned. Anyone can say anything and get away with it. Somehow Indian weddings give a licence for a freedom from normal civil conduct. In films as far-ranging as Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding, Aanand Rai’s Tanu Weds Manu and Maneesh Sharma’s Band Baaja Baraat we saw how the wedding could bring out the angel and the devil from within the characters. In Mere Dad Ki Maruti (MDKM) strange things happen to the abrasive Salim (Saqib Saleem) and his belligerent boorish dad (Ram Kapoor) who are what Tom and Jerry would have been if they were father and son squabbling over a missing car . It’s hard to imagine MDKM without the in-your-face impunity of Ram Kapoor and the very confident semi-newcomer Saqib Saleem who plays his son. Ram incidentally is no stranger to films about bullying dad s(remember he played the bullied son’s gentle uncle in Udaan). The accomplished actor goes at his role with hammers and ...er, tongue. The dialogues by Ishita Moitra seem like veiled propaganda for family planning and condoms. Sample this. Bellows the boorish baap, “Now I know why some species of animals eat their own progenies.” Try swallowing that. If Ram is in his element his performance works entirely because of his screen son who screams right back with a vigour and velocity that parents all over the world know and recognize to be sign of a generation plunging blissfully into that gap which divides kids from their parents. Saqib Saleem as the son dodging his Dad’s verbal fusillade on a bad-car(ma)-day is a delight. A more restrained and less cocky Ranveer Singh with far more control over his acting chops than the here-there-everywhere role-on-the-run suggests, Saqib is a prized find. And a welcome addition to the jaded repertoire of overworked stars in Hindi cinema. Though MDKM is predominantly a goofy oddball father-son saga woven into the wacky workings of a hectic wedding, director Ashima Chibber manages to bring in with deft directness various characters and elements whose relevances are revealed in delightful loops of familial mock-drama. This is Sooraj Barjatya’s world gone amok. Characters dash in and out blissfully oblivious to their own action’s repercussions until it’s too late. The soundtrack belts out loud smoke-filled songs that are indicative of that heady anarchy which rules at wedding festivities. MDKM belongs to the crazy-fun genre of cinema. Anything and everything can go wrong in this world of primetime chaos. Managing to keep it afloat is a challenge. And you’ll love it, but only of you aren’t squeamish about flamboyant aggressive plot machinations. Niceties are taboo and irreverence is a way of life in MDKM. And if you adored Akshay Kumar’s sotto-voice lowered-eyes hero-worship of his screen dad Amitabh Bachchan in Suneel Darsham’s Ek Rishta then you better stay from this one. Here the son screams right back at his uncontrollable dad. Don’t look for restrain here. It’s mad mad mad world. Enter at your own risk.