A comic plot with the family in focus, featuring a star, two stunning girls, and an adorable, talented kid, is a perfect choice of script delivering the expected entertainment. Thankfully, Honsla Rakh makes the best use of the opportunity and exploits all four elements to the max, fulfilling the huge expectations, offering a thoroughly entertaining film.
Directed by Amarjit Singh, it follows the typical format beginning with a song and then takes its own sweet time to introduce the premise and the key characters. One slowly gets to know the present and back story of the single father, Yenkey Singh (Diljit Dosanjh), and his son Honsla (Shinda Grewal), post his divorce with Sweety (Shehnaaz Gill). This initial hour of the film gradually picks up and is not entirely a laugh riot with enjoyable sequences coming at regular intervals. But what keeps it going is the excellent chemistry between Diljit, the bright kid Shinda and Shehnaaz, ensuring smiles on our faces.
The scenario changes once Jasmine (Sonam Bajwa) makes a terrific entry just before the intermission and lightens up the screen with her smashing presence. The second half thus becomes far better in comparison with Diljit, Shinda, and Sonam having a great time till Shehnaaz returns in the climax resulting in a chaotic entertainment. Incidentally, the culmination is quite similar to Smeep Kang’s movies made on mistaken identities.
Despite becoming predictable along with the routine additions of songs, Honsla Rakh works because of its engaging comic narrative, well-written dialogues, and immensely likable performances of all. Led by the youngest star Shinda, the cast excels towards the end, and the kid acts brilliantly, showing no signs of nervousness. He wins hearts along with Diljit, Sonam, Shehnaaz and the audience have a great time, especially in the final 30 minutes of the film ending on a hilarious note. Shinda being the son of Gippy Grewal, it’s great to see a superstar casting the son of another superstar of Punjabi cinema spreading positive vibes in the trade. Besides, while Diljit and Sonam have already proved their acting skills, it’s the effortless act of Shehnaaz that grabs your attention and the girl makes her presence felt even in her limited scene appearances leaving a pleasant impact.
As a drawback, while the fans of Sonam would keep missing her in the first half, fans of Shehnaz would feel the same as she vanishes for a good part of the second half before the climax. In fact, that is the way the director maintains a fine balance between the roles of two stunning and talented beauties.
In all, Honsla Rakh might not be an exceptional, novel experience in terms of subject or presentation, but the film knows its target audience and perfectly serves them well as an entertaining family movie. So go for it and have a great time in the theatre taking the kids along.
Rating : 3.5 / 5
Released in Theaters
Bobby Sing
(bobbytalkscinema.com)
NOTE : The article was first published in THE FREE PRESS JOURNAL Newspaper (Mumbai Edition) on 19th October 2021
