Apna Sapna Money Money

Why did I choose to watch Apna Sapna Money Money this weekend? Well, for two reasons: Director Sangeeth Sivan’s last outing was unapologetically lewd and funny Kya Kool Hain Hum, and Shreyas Talpade whom I have come to like immensely with his last two movies.

The outcome, however, is hardly worth the exhorbitantly priced Rs. 180 ticket. The movie takes inspirations from numerous Priyadarshan movies and borrows many characters and situations from Hera Feri, Hungama etc. and I think that is where it falters. Mr. Sivan, we already have Priyadarshan, failing repeatedly, to match his unforgettable Hera Feri in his subsequent attempts and there is no need for you to copy his style of filmmaking. And please! those everyone-chasing-everyone-else sequences have been done to death. Spare us.

Kya Kool Hain Hum ventured where hindi filmmakers seldom go and thus received thumbs up from us: the public who felt that it spoke in the language we all speak and understand. But the biggest assets were its funny situations the protagnist found themselves in. ASMM, on the other hand, has situations lifted from umpteen crime comedies witnessed on silver screen in past few months. Is there no one who can see that we have had a overdose of crime+comedy, a trend revived by Hera Feri.

ASMM sadly has no brilliantly sketched character, a la Baburao from Hera Feri. But it barely manages to create one such character in Chote Sarkar Mata Prasad, played brilliantly by Rajpal Yadav. Anupam Kher irritates and so is Jackie Shroff. Sunil Shetty hams but that’s nothing new. Ritesh Deshmukh enjoys the limelight as he is present in almost all the frames. He does well as he has always done well in comedies. It’s the Shreyas Talpade who has been wasted completely in an very boring, unimaginative role. He was delightful in Dor but what a wasted opportunity in this movie. Heroines, well, I have already forgotten who all were present, so well...

All in all, this is a movie which is intermittently funny but marred significantly by the need to have a noble reason for a bad deed. It’s a self conscious attempt which treads a beaten path not a no-holds-barred approach which in the earlier outing from this director tickled our funny bone. Watch it only if you are stuck in a mall and waiting for your friends who have just called you to say that they would be late by two hours.