WELCOME TO SAJJANPUR Movie Review

Film: WELCOME TO SAJJANPUR

Rating: 3.25/5

Banner: UTV Spot Boy

Cast: Shreyas Talpade,Amrita Rao, Ravi Kishan, Ila Arun, Divya Dutta, Yashpal Sharma, ajeshwari Sachdev,Ravi Jhankal and others

Music : Shantanu Moitra

Director: Shyam Benegal

Producers: Ronnie Screwvala & Zarina Mehta

Release Date: September 19, 2008

Story:

An interesting tale, the story is about a small village Sajjanpur which has its share of interesting characters. The protagonist is Mahadev (Shreyas Talpade), who has the privilege of being the highly educated and literate person in the village and his ambition is to become a writer. For now, he is fulfilling his ambition by sitting next to the post office and reading and writing letters to the huge uneducated lot of the village and thereby making his livelihood. Some of the prominent characters he comes across in his daily life include a local goon Ramsingh (Yashpal Sharma) who wants to be a politician, a eunuch Munni Bhai (Ravi Jhankal), a devoted housewife whose husband has not returned from Mumbai for the past four years, an orthodox woman of the village Mausi (Ila Arun), a retired army officer who is highly short tempered and also has a widow daughter-in-law Shobharani (Rajeshwari Sachdev) and last but not the least there is also his childhood sweetheart Kamala (Amrita Rao) who is now married to someone else. Mahadev's strength lies in his ability to come up with good letters and soon he begins to misuse his power for his own needs and ends up creating chaos and confusion and sometimes interesting outcomes. What are those situations forms the rest of the story.

Presentation:

The director has come up with a very neat subject that has not been delved upon and he has come up with a good presentation and a mature narrative to support him. He has been well supported by the technical crew as the music was in sync with the mood, the camera captured the locales effectively, the pace was moderate. Though the script was not extraordinary, the deft handling of the screenplay and the editing made up for the drawbacks. Shreyas came again with a remarkable performance, Amrita from her end was cute and fitted the bill perfectly. Yashpal Sharma was excellent, Divya Dutta was superb, Ila Arun was effective, Ravi Kishan was impressive, Rajeshwari Sachdeva was apt, Ravi Jhankal was hilarious. Even Kunal Kapoor made his presence felt though it was for few moments.

Conclusion:

The idea of coming up with the happenings set in a remote village and the weaving of some interesting characters present there is a creative thought. While the first half has been quite entertaining with the elements of comedy, character building and other factors it is the second half which tends to get a bit slow in the rhythm due to the unwanted songs. Had it not been for the songs, the movie would have been quite an entertainer. But still, given the performances and the presentation, the film will shine at the box office and all it requires is a gentle push with some positive word of mouth.