Praising the novel effort made, it’s certainly not easy to make an entertaining road movie without any dragging moments. And its even more difficult to conceive a comical movie revolving around deaths and two dead bodies getting exchanged reaching the wrong families. KARWAAN directed by Akarsh Khurana bravely merges both the plots together and delivers an average entertainer that actually promised a lot more in its exciting promos.
With one of its lead actors (Irrfan Khan) struggling with serious illness in real life (getting his treatment abroad) and another (Dulquer Salmaan) making a not so publicized, calm debut in Hindi films despite being a heartthrob and a big star in south, KARWAAN has its own share of merits, that sadly couldn’t result in a great not to be missed venture as it was expected to be.
Taking a long time coming to the point, the film gives you a fairly good time in the first hour as the mix-up between the bodies gets revealed and the journey begins with the coffin including three characters coming from completely different backgrounds and age groups. Humour remains the key element in this initial hour and then quite a few dragging and forced sequences result in a not so engaging second half affecting its overall impact.
Actually it’s the performances that keep you engrossed more than the writing or the events placed in the script to be honest. Plus the unexpected cameos help a lot of Kriti Kharbanda and Amala giving you a pleasant surprise. Dulquer Salmaan makes an impressive debut and spells his charm on screen playing a young independent person living with his own guilt and regrets. Mithila Palkar confidently makes her presence felt even in her difficult scenes with Irrfan and Dulquer together. And both the dialogues and cinematography grab your attention well as the film progresses further. However the same cannot be said about the songs with mixed use of English-Hindi in their lyrics having the same routine feel in their compositions.
So overall it’s a sweet and calm road movie based on a unique plot involving deaths that might get liked by many due to its star attractions. But then, where it goes wrong despite these exceptional merits?
KARWAAN goes wrong when nothing much happens in the travel and then the road-movie suddenly ends moving into other unrequired sub-plots.
It goes wrong when the news of death doesn’t really have a tragic impact on even a son, a daughter or the grand-daughter and they all take it pretty casually.
But KARWAAN actually goes wrong when the director starts presenting Irrfan Khan as a comedian, bringing in the timely laughter, forgetting the realistic characterisation he had begun with. In fact post intermission people start giggling the moment Irrfan appears onscreen (entering into an otherwise serious situation), which in turn hinders the film to reach any kind of insightful depths despite revolving around an unusually thoughtful subject.
Moreover a completely forced sequence dealing with the foreigners and a romantic sub-plot introducing an old man’s wife with the reference of the in-news ‘Talaaq-Talaaq-Talaaq’ (said by the woman for a change), doesn’t really work becoming the biggest downer for the film heading towards an unimpressive climax. It still could have worked had the director finished it off the moment Irrfan gets to know she is married.
Anyway, KARWAAN still can be seen for its performers, especially Irrfan Khan bringing the house down at regular intervals. But in an attempt to entertain its viewers, the film forgets the balance to be maintained between both happiness and sorrow missing a truly great opportunity.
Having said that would like to give some extra brownie points to the writer-director, for (may be unintentionally) bringing forward a burning social issue of our present society, where the youngsters not even know how to read, write or understand their mother-language.
Worth giving a thought if you also happen to be one of them!
Rating : 2.5 + 0.5 / 5 (with the additional 0.5 for pointing towards the ignorance widely seen for our mother languages)