17 January,2015 06:09 AM IST | | Shubha Shetty Shah
What stands out in this simple, funny film is its ensemble cast.
Kudos to the director and the writers for treating homosexuality naturally, without indulging in unnecessary drama
Crazy Cukkad Family
U/A; Comedy
DIR: Ritesh Menon
CAST: Swanand Kirkire, Shilpa Shukla, Ninad Kamat, Kushal Punjabi
What stands out in this simple, funny film is its ensemble cast. To his credit, debut director Ritesh Menon brings together some good actors best suited for the roles they are playing, thus making this film a fairly enjoyable experience.
Kudos to the director and the writers for treating homosexuality naturally, without indulging in unnecessary drama
Not really a novel story at the outset, (by Suhas Shetty and Kushal Punjabi), 'Crazy Cukkad Family' is about the four children of Beri family waiting for their comatose father to pop it so that they can usurp the huge property that belongs to him. The four siblings are a greedy wheeler dealer (Swanand Kirkire, eldest son), an aggressively ambitious daughter, Archana (Shilpa Shukla), the insipid, desperate-for-a-green-card second son (Kushal Punjabi) and the foreign returned youngest one (Siddharth Sharma). As each of their lives starts unfolding, more characters join in and the film starts gaining momentum and holds our interest throughout. Without being preachy, it tells us about the certain harsh unavoidable realities of life and death - the saddest part is that when practicality and ambition take over, children sometimes even look forward to their own parents' demise.
Kirkire, Shukla and Ninad Kamat (who plays Archana's wimp of a husband with a scandalous secret life) are excellent. The rest of the cast lends good support too.
There are some truly laugh-out-loud scenes in the film, like the one which involves an item girl and her family proudly showing off her signature move in the song Sexy Pakoda.
Small delightful moments and some subtle messages, without disturbing the narrative, are what work for this movie in a big way. Also, extra points to the director and the writers for treating homosexuality naturally as it ought to be, without indulging in unnecessary drama or, worse still, making fun of it.
The hitch, however, is that even there are many aggressively ambitious characters in the film, Crazy Cukkad Family itself lacks ambition as it seems content with little. A tad more effort and this could have been a better film.
