Lage Raho Munna Bhai

Director: Rajkumar Hirani

Cast: Sunjay Dutt, Arshad Warsi, Vidya Balan, Boman Irani, Jimmy Shergill, Dia Mirza, Dilip Prabhavalkar

9/10

Until last Friday, the definitive satiric comedy in Hindi cinema was Kundan Shah’s Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron, a film that tarred the establishment with dollops of black humour. That honour now belongs to Rajkumar Hirani’s Lage Raho Munna Bhai, a cinematic experience that might appear to be considerably lighter but is no less effective in delivering its message.

While most comedies bombard the audience with an assortment of gags in the hope that one-third of the material will click, Hirani’s sequel to the 2003 caper, Munna Bhai MBBS, makes no attempt at meaningless mirth. That’s a rare claim for any film to make, and rarer still for a comedy that aims to please a heterogeneous audience. When you are not laughing aloud at the antics of Munna Bhai and Circuit — undoubtedly on their way to becoming the most loveable duo in Indian cinema — you will be admiring the incisive intelligence that goes into crafting every frame of this wonderfully uplifting film.

From the opening sequence, where Arshad Warsi aka Circuit is kidnapping a municipality official, to Sunjay Dutt aka Munna Bhai’s realisation of the importance of being earnest, there is seldom a scene that does not stand for what Lage Raho Munna Bhai is all about. It obviously helps that the film has a brilliant cast. Sunjay evokes the innocence of Raj Kapoor’s tramp roles, Arshad as his loyal ally delivers his most endearing performance yet, Vidya Balan as the radio jockey who Sunjay falls for makes Gracy Singh (in the previous film) look pedestrian and Boman Irani as a crooked Punjabi builder is a marvel.

The icing is Hirani’s ability to maintain the quality of humour, innocent and irreverent at the same time. Would you believe it? The director actually gets Mahatma Gandhi (yes, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the father of the nation) to play a major role in a comedy film about two taporis!

If Munna Bhai MBBS was about the power of the central protagonist’s jadoo ki jhappi, the sequel is about the force of non-violence. Amazingly, there is nothing sanctimonious about the way the message is put across. You laugh at the jokes, turn dewy-eyed when Munna Bhai apologises for slapping Circuit, fight to stop yourself from clapping for a particularly well-written dialogue and, as the credits stop rolling, walk out of the theatre wondering when was the last time a film gave you so much for the price of a ticket.

Ritu Parna Dutta