Big plans, but short on delivery

Maan Gaye Mughall-E-Azam
Cast: Paresh Rawal, Malika Sherawat, Rahul Bose
Director: Sanjay Chhel
**

To copy is to cheat. To spoof is to copy imaginatively. The best Hollywood spoofs, and spoofers — like Mel Brooks for instance — bank on brevity. Maan Gaye Mughall-E-Azam (MGMA) could have been a much more effective comedy had to it restrained its length to a snappy 90 minutes.

The film draws 'inspiration' from Sarfarosh and Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron but falls short in keeping it short and thus loses the few plus points in its favour. Broadly, a small town theatre troupe gets entangled in a plot to save the nation sometime in early 2003. At the same time the lead actor (Paresh Rawal) of the troupe who is suffering from serious delusions of grandeur, is also battling off his wife's (Mallika Sherawat) amorous suitor (Rahul Bose).

The movie has some witty lines which are lost within the endless plot with assorted and unnecessary characters. Had writer-director Sanjay Chhel been objective about his own script, he might have scored better.

Though Bose seems to have jumped in feet first, he appears uncomfortable throughout. As a small town actress with big dreams, Sherawat times her dialogues well but springs no surprises. Expectedly, Rawal steals the show. As a veteran actor who comes to realise that he is just another ham, the actor's grasp over comedy is impeccable.
MGMA is like an over-cooked piece of meat that has lost all its juice.