REVIEW PRAWAAS (Marathi)

Producer-Om Chhangani

Director- Shashank Udapurkar

Star Cast- Ashok Saraf, Padmini Kolhapure, Shreyas Talpade, Rajit Kapur and Vikram Gokhale

Genre- Social

Platform- Amazon Prime Video

Rating- ***

Emotion-ridden but preachy with melodrama!

Jyothi Venkatesh

Seniors citizens Abhijaat (Ashok Saraf) and Lata Inamdar (Padmini Kolhapure) live in Mumbai, while their son Dilip (Shashank Udapurkar) lives abroad. An enthusiastic 60-something, Abhijaat is forever chasing time, until his fast paced lifestyle takes a toll on his health and he realizes that it is now time to slow down and make the rest of his life’s journey special.

It is now time for Abhijaat to start questioning his entire life journey when his health takes a bad turn after both his kidneys fail. He is required to undergo dialysis twice a week. Abhijaat feels that he hasn’t set out to become an actor like his idol Dilip Kumar to make people remember him once he is gone and his main worry is that only eight to ten people may throng to attend his funeral as and when he is gone. Abhijaat at the fag end of his life realizes that he actually wanted to become an actor but he could not pursue that dream because of family responsibilities.

Abhijaat decides to start a free ambulance service, though his wife, who is very practical , opposes the idea as she does not want him driving at his age and in his health condition, when the problem could have been resolved by hiring a driver as Abhijaat and Lata are well off.

The songs offer some respite, especially the two versions of the title track sung by Sonu Nigam and Shreya Ghoshal with Salim-Sulaiman's music. While Ashok Saraf and Padmini Kolhapure are simply superb as far as their performances in the film are concerned, the same cannot be said about the writer-director Shashank Udapurkar who plays the role of their son abroad. Why he chooses to stay abroad, what he does there and whether he has a family of his own have not been established at all and it looks like montage shots abroad have been thrust in the film only to show off its richness. Thanks to the flawed screenplay, Rajit Kapur is wasted as a filler in a role which is half baked as a spiritual guru cum classical cum ghazal singer with a beard who encourages Abhijaat that all is not lost and he should make the most of whatever time is left for him, by being of service to humanity.

Shreyas Talpade plays a super star who readily agrees to visit an ailing child in a hospital but one fails to understand why on earth he sets out to spout dialogues with a heavy Punjabi accent in a Marathi film, that too in a serious scene. Vikram Gokhale is okay as a doctor with a heart of gold but then he does not have any scope at all to prove his worth. It is an emotion ridden preachy film with a lot of melodrama, and will win your hearts nevertheless.