Fun, erratic, complete chaos and a laugh riot are words that come to mind when watching Malamaal Weekly. This light entertainer is in keeping with the typical Priyadarshan style that he has used in Hungama, Hera Pheri and Hulchul. Comic seems to be Priyadarshan’s forte and this time round too he manages to create a whirlwind of laughter with his Malamaal Weekly.
Malamaal Weekly is directed by Priyadarshan and stars Paresh Rawal, Om Puri, Ritesh Deshmukh, Reemma Sen, Sudha Chandran, Rakhi Sawant, Shakti Kapoor and Rajpal Yadav.
The plot has a rural setting, in a village called Laholi. This village is poverty-stricken, where the inhabitants are as poor as church mice. The village is suffering from bad weather and bad harvest and the poor peasants are always indebted to the villainous landlady, Sudha Chandran. She always exploits the villagers and amasses wealth.
Leelaram (Paresh Rawal) is a lottery vendor who has lost his land and cattle to the landlady. Now his only hope of income is the 10 percent commission that he will make on the winning lottery ticket. One day while watching TV at a local tea stall, he finds out that one of the tickets has indeed one a bumper prize of Rs 1 crore. Most of the villagers do not have a TV and are also illiterate, so he is very sure that no one besides him knows of this privileged information. He now sets out on his mission to find the lottery winner, so that he can claim his commission.
He decides to host a party, inviting all the villagers, but the criteria is that everyone who comes has to get his lottery ticket to enter the party. Leelaram sells his last possession, his wife’s beloved goat to organize this party. All the villagers attend the party bringing along their lottery tickets, except for one man, a drunk by the name of Anthony. Leelaram checks their tickets and finally comes to the conclusion that the winning ticket is with Joseph Anthony who has not attended the party. He packs some delicious food and with the pretext of taking this to Anthony, he heads over to his house.
But on reaching Anthony’s house, he finds him dead, clutching on to his lottery ticket, invariably the shock of winning Rs 1 crore was too much for the drunk to handle. A plan starts to form in the clever Leelaram’s head. He decides to keep the lottery ticket and claim the winning prize for himself. But just as he is prying the lottery ticket loose from Joseph’s fingers, the milkman Ballu (Om Puri) sees him and thinks that he has killed Anthony. Dreaming of the 1 crore, Leelaram explains to Ballu about the winning prize and lottery ticket, he now has an accomplice in the booty and together they decide to stash the dead body away.
But unfortunately, to their sheer ill luck Kanhaiya (Ritesh Deshmukh), who works as a cowherd for Ballu and who is also in love with his young daughter Sukhmani (Reemma Sen) catches them in the act. From here, one by one, almost the entire village joins in this conspiracy to get a part of the prize. There are several other parallel tracks running alongside like the love story between Sukhmani and Kanhaiya, the wastrel Raj Bahadur who is the younger brother of the landlady. Raj’s favourite pastime is to get his buddies to splash muddy water on the village belles passing by, he then plays peeping Tom when they change their clothes in a public bathroom. One day after watching Sukhmani change her clothes, he then firmly decides that he wants to marry her. Now there is tussle between Raj and Kanhaiya for Sukhmani’s hand in marriage.
Add all these sub plots and there is chaos, confusion and a comic situation, which is Malamaal Weekly.
Malamaal Weekly is typical Priyadarshan fare. It has the same style and feel that all his previous comedies had. He has done what he does best, comedy genre. But this time there is a stale feel to his movie. The illogical plot, the cinematic liberties, the chaos and confusion have all been done time and again before. Even the climax has been repeated before in his previous films with a lot of running around and loud over the top scenes.
Malamaal Weekly has too many plots intertwined together, which does not enhance the plot, but merely seems to irritate and distract the viewer from the main plot. Also, there are no songs in the film, except for one item number. Song and dance is the staple diet of any Bollywood movie. Also, the one item number with Rakhi Sawant is nothing to rave about. No songs means no respite for the viewers from the constant barrage of dialogues. Also, this has made the movie too long. The editor should have worked his magical wand at this time, but has not.
But Malamaal Weekly does have an interesting basic plot of the lottery vendor and his winning lottery ticket. The rural setting also works to its advantage, as it is different. There is enough of humor to keep the audience engaged in the story, dialogues too make you sit back and enjoy the light and fun ambience. All the characters do justice to their role, Paresh Rawal is indeed the star of the film and he is his usual bundle of energy and talent, Om Puri is very good in his role, Asrani does his work exceptionally well, Rajpal Yadav does his mad role convincingly, Reemma Sen has a small role and is just average, Ritesh Deshmukh is competent and Arbaaz Khan in a special appearance is more than convincing.
Malamaal Weekly will definitely be appreciated in the metros; however, it may not go down too well with the multiplex audiences who prefer fare that is more versatile these days. All in all, it is a fun, pacy, chaotic film that will definitely give the viewers short-term excitement. Go watch it, just for a laugh; it will help relieve some stress.
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| Reviewed By: Rachel Fernandes |
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