Marjaavaan translates to “I will die” and one can easily come to this fatal conclusion after having been numbed by 135 minutes of the film. I was wondering what the problem with the film really is and then it struck me - director Milap Zaveri takes himself too seriously and so does the film. And that’s the problem, because Marjaavaan is actually a closet comedy. It does not mean to be hilarious, but ends us being so.
Everyone in the movie is delegating their work to poor Raghu aka Sidharth Malhotra. There is the water mafia head who Raghu is indebted to because he picked him up from the gutter and brought him up. So, Raghu ensures that Anna’s (Nassar) dhanda (business) functions smoothly without any hurdles. Arzoo (Rakul Preet Singh) has outsourced the protection of her izzat abroo to Raghu. Zoya (Tara Sutaria) wants him to play the harmonica . His friends, who have been tortured by the midget Vishnu (Riteish Deshmukh), wait for Raghu to come out of jail and take revenge. Then there is Ravi Kishan playing a cop who also wants Raghu to testify against his boss . Even the cop will not go investigate someone else !
Everyone merrily steps back to let Raghu do their jobs except for Vishnu. He is the only one who wants Raghu out of the way so that he can wield power. But the duo never get along. Sigh!
The good old corporate strategy of delegating one’s own work to others has made Raghu into a dull boy. If you go by this version there is a good chance you would find Marjaavan a tad bit entertaining .
However, the makers clearly have other lofty ideas planned, and it makes Marjaavaan feel like a product that has gone bad before its expiry date. Trying to recreating the 80s Bollywood tropes - a revenge drama and an angry young hero fighting a bully - appear pointless . Adding insult to injury are the dramatic over-the-top dialogues like Main maroonga marr jaayega dobara janam lene se darr jaayega (I will beat you up so hard that you will flinch while thinking of being reborn). There is even a mention of dhai kilo ka dimaag as the most potent weapon anyone can possess ! But no one is shown using it - nor the writer and definitely not the dialogue writer .
Dated, dreary and one that completely tests our patience, I will have to go with one quint out of five.
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