Can you please leave the Mahanayak in peace? Cast: Uttam Kumar, Anindya Sengupta, Gourab Chatterjee & introducing Roshni Bhattacharya ...
Can you please leave the Mahanayak in peace?
Cast: Uttam Kumar,
Anindya Sengupta, Gourab Chatterjee & introducing Roshni Bhattacharya
Rating: 2*
The narrative in Oti Uttam has clips from Mahanayak Uttam Kumar’s monochrome films of the 60s & 70s. Director Srijit Mukherjee tries something new with the help of AI-generated clips and the voice of the Mahanayak. But he fails in the process of story-telling. Credited as the dialogue & story writer, he makes the film look amateurish - his only focus being Uttam Kumar. But yes, how can you look at others if you have Uttam Kumar and it is here that Srijit plays a smart game. The dialogue clips featuring the Mahanayak are absolutely spot on, but again the latter’s interchanging appearances become erratic which leads to an eyesore.
Krishnendu (a dull Anindya Sengupta) is an ardent Uttam Kumar fan who is doing a PhD on the Mahanayak. He asks his best friend, Uttam Kumar’s grandson, Gourab Chatterjee (playing himself), to help him out when he is shown the door by his love interest Sohini (a confident Roshni Bhattacharya). Krishnendu requests Gourab to help him in planchette to summon the spirit of the Mahanayak. The reason: who better than the heartthrob of millions being a ‘love guru’ and helping Krishnendu get his gal, Sohini? But the twist in the tale is when Sohini falls in love with Uttam Kumar.
The supporting
cast, especially Laboni Sarkar and Subhashish Mukherjee as Krishnendu’s parents, shine in the scene where Uttam Kumar comes to meet them.
There are a lot of
scenes of disbelief where the director falters especially in the restaurant and
metro train. Plus the film looks disjointed and the dialogues forced. But still,
let’s give the devil his due - it’s a Herculean task to go through the realms
of Uttam’s films and tirelessly sync the footage to the script along with the
proper dialogue snippet which is really commendable.
But all said and done, will someone please leave Uttam Kumar alone?
This is one of the worst directoral venture of Srijit Mukhopadhyay.. He tried to capitalise only on the Karishma of the Mahanayak, but failed miserably...
ReplyDeleteThe highlight of the movie is extremely weak storyline and even weaker technology usage... To make such an absurd storyline believable, the kind of technological support and mixing effect required, is totally missing in the film.. The result has been disastrous...