Khatta Meetha review

Story: Sachin Tichkule (Akshay Kumar), a small time contractor, is desperate to succeed in a society that is skewed heavily towards the corrupt, the mean, the selfish and the law breakers. He gives up his collegiate Gandhian philosophy and is even ready to pay the mandatory bribes and do a bit of wheeling-dealing to move ahead in life, specially when he sees his kith and kin succumbing to greed and grime. But, a chance meeting with his erstwhile girlfriend (Trisha), now an honest and upright municipal commissioner, rings in the requisite conscience call. The rest is mera Bharat mahaan!

The story is about the protagonist Sachin Tichkule (Akshay Kumar), a Gandhian law student turned dirty and cheating road construction contractor who has to find his way back to his ‘sathyamaeva jayathae’ route which is polluted by his corrupt brother and brother-in-laws, their friend - the Evil Politician who also marries his sister later on. Gehna (Trisha), his ex- college lover, comes back in the scene as the Municipal Commissioner only to find his once saint boyfriend as a corrupt road contractor. Will the transformation of Sachin be complete by the end of the movie? The audience surely would have appreciated if the transformation was a 30 minutes earlier..

Priyadarshan, after the sensational Kanchivaram, has given critically panned Billu, De Dana Dan and Bum Bum Bole and now has hit a new low with Khatta Meetha. The storyline lacked continuity, emotions were too over dramatized, comedy - slapstick to the core, romance was completely missing, too many continuation problem, the pace was bit too slow which all lead to a half baked climax. For a Priyadarshan movie, not even a single laugh-a-loud moment was too big a problem for the audience to digest.

Acting department is led by Akshay Kumar and as always he excels in it. Whatever he did was as per the requirement of the role but the role in itself required a bit of detailing which was very much lacking. Trisha Krishnan’s big Bollywood debut is a complete put off, she lacked the conviction to essay a municipal commissioner’s role, and her mouthing of the dialogues was never in-sync. It’s a mini disaster for this southern hottie who looked fake from the word go. Manoj Joshi was pretty good and Rajpal Yadav a delight to watch. Urvashi Sharma looked pretty and fitted the small role quite well. Aruna Irani and Tinu Anand were completely wasted. Makrand Deshpande did his part quite convincingly. There are loads of other actors in the movie but none good enough to stand out in the crowd.

The movie didn’t require any experiments in the cinematography section, so Manikandan tries to show his skills in the chase sequence pre-climax and it did come out pretty well. Art by Sabu Cyril was exceptional and hardly did anyone know which was true and which was not, something which only the best will be able to attain. Editing by Arun Kumar looked too lenient. Music By Pritam was fine with Aila re Aila and Sajde being quite popular already but bad placement in the narrative does take the sheen out of the melodies.


A word about:
Performances: Akshay is earnest and in form for the entire film. Quite watchable. Rajpal Yadav and Johnny Lever are a scream. Debutante Trisha is average. Doesn't really hold your attention.

Story: Priyadarshan's story gets repetitive and needs to be drastically edited.

Music: Pritam's score is musical enough, although it does seem an add-on, specially the Bullshit number.

Dialogues: Funny in places, banal in most places.

Styling: Akshay re-invents the common man with his Rayban look, while Trisha dons the stiff sari avatar as the no-nonsense officer. Priyadarshan's sprawling haveli, where the extended family lives is actually quite inviting.

Inspiration: The film is a re-make of Priyadarshan's earlier Malayalam film, Vellanakalude Nadu, with Mohanlal in the lead.