'Toaster' Review: Rajkummar Rao's Confused Comedy Wastes a Great Premise

'Toaster' loses the plot when it stops being about the actual missing toaster, writes Suchin Mehrotra.

Rajkummar Rao in a still from Toaster.

(Photo Courtesy: YouTube) 

Toaster—the confused new comedy on Netflix from debut director Vivek Daschaudhary and the first film from actors Rajkummar Rao and Patralekhaa's new production house, Kampa Films—wastes a great premise.

Meet Ramakant (Rajkummar is never NOT a joy to watch in a comedy) who's a terrifyingly, debilitatingly cheap. I'm talking 'argues for a six-rupee refund on his phone bill' level kanjoos.

His way of being includes taking his wife to the local gurdwara for langar to celebrate their wedding anniversary, and sneaking toast from his neighbour every morning to save himself from having to pay for breakfast. That, or attending local political rallies or religious processions for the free food.

Ramakant is a shopkeeper who sells fake perfumes, but his true calling is searching for new ways to save money, even if it means attending weddings to stuff handfuls of rotis in his pocket for later. ​

Despite Ramakant’s childish protests and whining, his true-crime-obsessed, black-belt-holding wife, Shilpa (a spunky Sanya Malhotra), forces him to fork out Rs 6,000 for a toaster as a gift for a wedding they're attending. For him, that's nothing short of torture. When the marriage is called off the day after the wedding, Ramakant is determined to reclaim his shiny new toaster and get his damn refund.

Rajkummar Rao and Sanya Malhotra in a still from Toaster.

(Photo Courtesy: YouTube) 

I loved the sparkling specificity and comedic promise of these stakes alone.

For him, Rs 6,000 is a small fortune, and his affliction-masquerading as a personality won't allow him to let go of the said toaster—even if it means going to the bride's family and demanding its return, or then trying to steal it from the orphanage it was donated to.

But writers Parveez Shaikh, Akshat Ghildial, and Anagh Mukherjee raise the stakes even further.

Unbeknownst to Ramakant, through an appliance mix-up, hidden in the toaster is a memory card containing a sex tape that his nashedi neighbour (Abhishek Banerjee, in a fun cameo) is using to blackmail a local politician (a playful Jitendra Joshi), thus setting the stage for a dark comedy that snowballs into a shitstorm of multiple deaths and murders, and a hotchpotch of overlapping blackmail schemes.

Rajkummar Rao in Fine, Funny Form

Toaster is apparently set in Mumbai, but the sense of setting and narrative are generic enough that this could pretty much be any major city. The solid first leg of the film plods along breezily, and the laughs (largely stemming from Ramakant’s superhuman cheapness, and Rajkummar Rao in fine, funny form) are remarkably consistent.

But as it goes on, Toaster gradually descends into a fever dream of a tonal rollercoaster (rollertoaster?) and throw-everything-at-the-wall gags that dangerously tread the line between go-for-broke wacky and just irritating.

The first warning sign comes early. In a mostly fun sequence, a blazed Abhishek Banerjee mistakes neighbour Ramakant for his recently deceased mother (Seema Pahwa), leading to a playful, silly exchange. It’s a gag straight out of Housefull that just about lands.

But it feels out of place in a film that was, thus far, a situational comedy rooted in its lead character’s kooky quirks, rather than the blur of squeaky slapstick the film becomes. It’s why the second half goes off the rails entirely with increasingly outlandish and animated skits and sketches taking over scenes and stakes.

It may have felt less jarring had the cartoonish humour actually landed. But loud for the sake of loud just has you reaching for the remote to reduce the volume.

Farah Khan in a still from Toaster.

(Photo Courtesy: YouTube) 

A Blur Of Squeaky Slapstick

Toaster loses the plot, pun intended, when it stops being about the actual missing toaster. Ramakant finds himself blackmailed and used as a sex slave. There’s a bizarre dream sequence. There are murders that happen just because they can. There’s a wacky hand-to-hand final face-off that feels almost Happy Patel-esque, minus the conviction—only for Toaster to then conclude as a relationship story (?), which it never was to begin with. All in all, a real headscratcher.

The wider cast do their best despite the meandering material. Farah Khan stops by for a quick cameo that’s fun because it doesn’t overstay its welcome. The comedic potential of Upendra Limaye is wasted here as a by-the-book crooked cop—director Vivek Daschaudhary doesn’t seem to know what to do with him.

Rajkummar Rao and Upendra Limaye in a still from Toaster.

(Photo Courtesy: YouTube) 

But it’s the unhinged Archana Puran Singh character as a nosy neighbour that risks breaking this Toaster. She gets a lengthy arc, which I won’t give away, that only seems to get increasingly animated and more difficult to stomach, taking big swings that don’t land.

Elsewhere, Sanya Malhotra’s Shilpa seems to be in her own film entirely. While I appreciate trying to give “the wife” a meatier arc, Shilpa seems to be on her own trip entirely as the protagonist of her own film within this film, as a DIY detective trying to solve the case of people dying within a cosy, tight-knit apartment colony. It felt reminiscent of the charming Malayalam film Sookshmadarshini.

Despite its sparkling premise, Toaster ends up being more bizarre and absurd than funny. There are multiple moments of a clearly confused Sanya Malhotra as Shilpa, as she tries to put all the bizarre facts together, whilst also trying to understand the tone and pitch of the film she’s in. She and I both. 

Toaster releases on Netflix on 15 April.

(Suchin Mehrotra is a critic and film journalist who covers Indian cinema for a range of publications. He's also the host of The Streaming Show podcast on his own YouTube channel. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)