Malamaal Weekly Hindi Movie
The Basics: Thanks to the pre release publicity of the movie Malamaal Weekly, otherwise viewers would have clearly mistaken the movie for a story about some magazine. It’s a story about a winner of a lottery from a village who dies of joy at the good news of winning one crore. But the lottery agent along with the villagers are bent upon not letting go of the chance to improve the lot of the famine stricken village by claiming the prize money.
The Truth: With a clean conscience and creative license to copy, Priyadarshan lifts the theme from the movie, ‘Waking Ned’. Nearly half of the Hindi movies are lifted from other movies. So no issues here. And Nakal marne keliye bhi akal chahiye. Besides, who cares whether our movie took shape in the mind of the director or on the screens of foreign countries a few decades ago, as long as the film maker doesn’t stake any claim to be a member of a genius club of original movie makers and entertain the audience thoroughly.
What’s the Deal? Remember the countless number of movies where the comedians wore dresses like buffoons, ate tons of food and got slapped around to make the audience laugh, only to fail miserably. Actors like TunTun with nothing but sheer girth were used to evoke laughter. Pathetic.
Ask any director worth his salt about which genre of movie is the most difficult to make and the answer would be ‘comedy’. To make a situational comedy to make the audience laugh is the most difficult thing in movie making. The timing, facial expressions and the dialogues have to be spot on. Priyadarshan succeeds in that almost every time.
The Priyadarshan Factor and Reasoning: In the movie Malamaal Weekly, A goes to hit X. B, C, D, and E too go to hit X. X is with Y. F, G, H, and I try to clobber Y. It all gets mixed up. B, C, D and E clobber Y…OK. I will stop it. But then your reasoning has to be a shade good if you don’t want to get lost in the melee. Realistic scenes, sensible plot, right choice of actors and the ability to ferment chaos are the hallmarks of Priyadarshan movies.
Another common denominator of Priyadarshan’s comedy movies is Paresh Rawal. The auteur is right in his choice of a comedy actor in Paresh Rawal who with minimal change in looks, slips in to the character so effortlessly that you don’t see the actor but the character after a few minutes of the projector roll. If it was a pair of thick eyeglasses that transformed him in Hera Pheri its a set of plaque stained dentures that metamorphoses him into a greedy-but-good-at-heart lottery agent in Malamal Weekly. And he is competently supported by Om Puri, who has proved his comic credentials long ago with movies like: Jane Bhi Do Yaron.
The Verdict: Copies or otherwise, Priyadarshan movies have been successfully tickling the funny bone of the audience for quite some time now. Just when you wonder that he might have run out of ideas bang comes his next movie. And you find yourself rolling with laughter watching Malamaal Weekly.
