After a long time, a Marathi film has all the ingredients to match a Bollywood entertainer. So what, if it's ripped off dialogue-by-dialogue, scene-by-scene from the Salman Khan starrer No Entry, writes Prasanna D Zore.
Actor-director Ankush Chaudhary has pulled off a coup of sorts with No Entry: Pudhe Dhokha Aahey.
Playing Salman Khan's character (Prem), Ankush may lack in Salman's screen presence and fan following but his character evokes just as much laughter and sympathy.
Like the Hindi version of No Entry, the Marathi version also lacks a tight plot. But slick editing and production values makes the film a super entertainer.
While the film is a ditto re-make of No Entry -- dialogue-by-dialogue, scene-by-scene and character-by-character -- the three lead actors -- Ankush Chaudhary (Salman Khan's Prem), Bharat Jadhav (Anil Kapoor's Kishan) and Aniket Vishwasrao (Fardeen Khan's Sunny) -- don't make you miss the Bollywood quotient.
Aniket, as a bumbling Sunny, has stood his ground while sharing screen space with veterans like Bharat Jadhav and Ankush Chaudhary.
Thankfully Bharat Jadhav is muted with his one-liners and his typical brand of humour and credit must go to the director for reining him in and making him act and not overact.
What strikes us most about this Marathi
No Entry is the amount of skin show that one gets to see on screen. Sai Tamhankar, as Bipasha Basu's Bobby, has a lot of oomph even though she is no match for the Bollywood heroine. Sai will probably be remembered for a long time for her two-piece bikini act though it makes a blink-and-miss appearance.
Sai's bikini act is indeed a bold move and one can only surmise that producers down South might soon make a beeline for her doorstep.
The film is an out-and-out entertainer and one can even watch it with family, considering the dialogues and all those double entendres are common parlance these days in most Maharshtrian families.
Unfortunately, the film seems to be lacking audience in theatres. The 11.45 am show at a suburban multiplex in north Mumbai had just seven people -- including myself -- in a theatre that seats almost 100. Sad!
Is the Marathi manoos taking the title of the film (Pudhe Dhoka Aahey -- There's danger ahead) too seriously and getting scared to venture out to patronise a Marathi entertainer?