“Mumbai Express” – crazy but not “Crazy” enough!

 

Kamal Hassan’s penchant for comedy needs no introduction.  With several classics like “MMKR” and “Avvai Shanmugi” under his belt, it is but natural to expect a rollicking ride every time he decides to take a break from his serious, offbeat features in order to make us laugh.  While “Mumbai Express” (directed by Singeetham Srinivasa Rao) is a very inventive comedy that does explore new territory there is something curiously dissatisfying about the product as a whole.

 

“Mumbai Express” is a case of Murphy’s Law wreaking havoc in the lives of a team of small time crooks who plan to kidnap a school kid for ransom.  As Chidambaram (Pasupathy) and Johnson (Vyapuri) conceive a hilariously inept plan, the third member in their team falls sick and his brother-in-law Avinashi (aka) Mumbai Express (Kamal Hassan) joins them.  Along the way, and much against their wishes, an insurance agent (Ramesh Aravind) enters the fray.  How the domino effect spills over to the lives of a police inspector (Nasser), his mistress (Manisha Koirala) and their child (the one being kidnapped) out of wedlock (Hardik) in more ways than one, is the crux of “Mumbai Express.” 

 

I thoroughly enjoyed the first half of “Mumbai Express.”  There are several laugh-out-loud sequences involving the gang of kidnappers.  Pasupathy is a revelation in these scenes.  His exasperation at his elaborately laid plans going awry leads to several hilarious moments and with the others lending him good support, the film moves at a frenetic pace.  Kamal too, without trying to dominate the proceedings (as is his wont), has his moments in the first half.  His conversation with the traffic police and his subsequent attempt to pacify Pasupathy are scenes where the enormously talented comedian in him comes to the fore.  There are some ingenious moments too, the one where the school kids sing “Vande Maataram” while watching Kamal hang precariously onto a steel cable being the best. 

 

Having built up fine comic momentum up to the intermission point, Kamal lets the pace flag a bit in the second half.  One of the main reasons for this is the fact that confusion, more than comedy, takes the upper hand.  As Nasser and Santhana Barathi discuss their needlessly complex plans to hand over the money to the gang, the viewer is saddled with the task of piecing together the pieces of a seemingly inexplicable puzzle.  There were at least two scenes (phone conversations) involving Nasser where I had little idea what was going on!  It is funny when the characters in a comedy are confused but the moot point is that the audience, should be clear about what is happening.  This is where Kamal failed in the second half of “Kadhala Kadhala” and he repeats this mistake at quite a few places in the second half of “Mumbai Express” too.

The other problem is that I was not sold on the Kamal-Manisha relationship.  While Kamal’s lines in an early morning scene bring out his intentions wonderfully well, there is no denying the fact that their romance is grossly underdeveloped.  Especially Manisha’s character—right till the end there is no transformation in her, subtle or dramatic—is not very likeable and this hurts their scenes. 

 

But thankfully, there are quite a few scattered scenes of inspired hilarity in the second half.  One involving Ramesh Aravind negotiating the ransom amount over the phone is memorable.  Observe Pasupathy’s facial reactions [esp. when Ramesh Aravind says, “Let me hand over the phone to our CEO!”] in this scene – this alone is worth the price of admission.  Santhana Barathi mistaking Kamal for an undercover agent also leads to some side-splitting moments.  The movie culminates in an amusing climax but I was left a curious sense of incompleteness with the way Kamal wrapped things up.  Another round of screenplay rewrites would have definitely served him well. 

 

Now to elaborate the title of this write-up, I have to mention a few words about “Crazy” Mohan.  Kamal’s trusted dialogue writer over the years, Mohan, a virtuoso of comic writing, wrote scripts for Kamal involving mistaken identities and the related imbroglios that sizzled with wit and brilliant wordplays.  But since he was in the US [staging dramas with his troupe] during the pre-production of “Mumbai Express,” he could not pen the script and as a result Kamal took on the added responsibility of writing dialogues.  Kamal recently mentioned in an interview, “I will miss Crazy and he will miss me.”  Well not just Kamal, I missed him too!  There were quite a few scenes where I couldn’t shake off the feeling, “Crazy could have done a lot more with this screenplay.”  I say this because there are several sequences in “Mumbai Express” where the setup is perfect for a rhythmic exchange of words between characters but the ineffable magic of the Kamal-Crazy combinations is missing here.  For instance, there was one scene where I was fully expecting a “Nayagan” in-joke [when Pasupathy tells Kamal about a “Saettu” intending to bulldoze the slums of Dharavi] to add spice to the proceedings but that was not to be.  On the other hand, I also have no idea how “Mumbai Express” will play to those who have little or no exposure to “Crazy” Mohan’s style of writing.  And maybe, I am being unfair in expecting more of the same from Kamal.  Maybe not!

 

In terms of performances, Kamal manages to extract the best out of his cast.  Every performer delivers his/her lines with relish and the comic timing rarely, if ever, is off the mark.  As I mentioned earlier, Pasupathy, with Vyapuri in tow, gets several nice lines.  Even secondary characters like Ramesh Aravind, Nasser, Santhana Bharathi and Sharad Saxena catch our attention with their dialogue delivery and perfect reaction shots.  But Manisha fails to find her moorings in an underwritten character.  And finally Kamal, the actor, has been doing a surfeit of comedies in the recent past to take a false step.  But having said that I hasten to add that there is nothing extraordinary about his performance either.

 

Technically, the movie is above average.  Illayaraja’s background score is a big disappointment.  It is only in the “Poo Poothathu” song and the perfectly choreographed scene during the school day function where we get to see glimpses of his talent as a composer.  But Siddharth (the cinematographer of “Nala Damayanthi,” not the doofus from “Boys”) aids the stunt director (“Vikram” Dharma) well in the fabulously-choreographed action sequences.

 

On the whole, I was glad that I hopped on to this “Express.”  At the same time, I also missed the engine behind other more entertaining Kamal Hassan rides.