‘Angrezi Medium’ Movie Review: Despite the glaring shortcomings in the Homi Adajania directorial, Irrfan Khan proves why he is still the best ‘Khan’

Directed By
Homi Adajania

Produced By
Dinesh Vijan, Jyoti Deshpande

Cast
Irrfan Khan, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Radhika Madan, Deepak Dobriyal, Dimple Kapadia, Ranvir Shorey, Pankaj Tripathi, Kiku Sharda, Manu Rishi, Zakir Hussain, Meghna Malik, Manish Gandhi, Manjoy Haldar, Poorvi Jain, Myrah Dandekar, Jane Thompson

Bollywood Bubble Rating
 What’s It About
An over-protective yet very lovable father (Irrfan Khan) wants to do everything possible in his capabilities to make sure his daughter (Radhika Madan) gets to study in a reputed university in England. However, he messes up with her scholarship. Now neither can he see his daughter crying nor does he have the money to afford her studies abroad. What all end of the earth would he go to just in order to make sure that his daughter’s dream of studying abroad is fulfilled forms the rest of the story. Will he be able to get his daughter the admission to the foreign university? Or will he end up getting caught up in his own web of lies and worldly problems? Well, for that you’ll have to watch the movie.

What’s Hot
Goes without saying that Irrfan Khan is the strongest character among all. He proves yet again as to why he is the best among all the Khans. The fluency with which he delivers every line and the passion with which he performs on screen is nothing short of pure magic. Not for a second would you want to take your eyes off him. He is the scene-stealer and he is the one whom you will be left wanting to see more and more.

Giving stable support to Irrfan Khan is the seller Deepak Dobriyal. The two together are like Jai-Veeru in ‘Sholay’ or Munna-Circuit in the ‘Munnabhai’ franchise. Not for a second will you feel that Deepak Dobriyal is acting. He makes the character so believable that you want to be with that guy. You want to talk to that guy. You want to spend time and be friends with that guy. He is that good. I wish we get to see more of Deepak Dobriyal in many more meaningful movies like this one.

The writing by Bhavesh Mandalia, Gaurav Shukla, Vinay Chhawall and Sara Bodinar is the USP of the film. It harps mainly on nostalgia and toys with the emotions of the viewers in the big cities who’ve left their small-town homes and come out either to study or earn a livelihood. The writing is so precise that at exact junctures you are made to suddenly tear up. Not only that, but the powerful writing also makes you feel guilty about not having called your parents after seeing their miss call on your phones.

Homi Adajania’s direction is good, even though I would say he has done much better before with ‘Being Cyrus’ and ‘Cocktail’. He has made sure that the film doesn’t turn into a moral science lecture and it remains entertaining to the core. He makes you laugh out loud in the middle of a very emotionally sunk scene. He makes sure that you are living alongside the characters, which makes the viewing experience even better. Commendable job done, Homi!

Lastly, the brilliant background score by Sachin-Jigar and Tanishk Bagchi makes you get the emotion perfect at all the right junctures.

A special mention to Pankaj Tripathi who manages to give every character a great punch. As the gay travel agent, with just a blink-and-miss performance, he shows a new dimension to his limitless potential.

What’s Not
Well, there are a lot of obvious loopholes in the screenplay. There are numerous plot points which are just left without any explanations given. Don’t want to give out spoilers but what the hell happened to the angle of the judge? What happened to the school principal who was hell-bent on destroying Irrfan’s daughter’s career? These are just a few at the top of my head.

Talking about the gamut of actor, the most disappointing is the minimal screen space of Radhika Madan. She is supposedly the lead actress in the film and has lesser screen time than Deepak Dobriyal. Can you imagine? There are no complaints about her acting, but seriously her character didn’t need an actress as good as Radhika Madan.

Kareena Kapoor in a special appearance is nice, but you will be left wanting for more of her policegiri. You will miss that one scene where Irrfan Khan tells all the truth to her, and she, despite being a cop, sees the goodness in his heart and lets his scot-free.

Even though Kiku Sharda, Dimple Kapadia and Ranvir Shorey weren’t mentioned to be as special appearances, you will see them in very very little of the movie. That fact will make you end up seeing Irrfan in pretty much every scene, making you think whether or not there are other characters in the movie.

Lastly, there are many scenes which are too lengthy. A scene with Irrfan, Deepak and Kiku drinking on the rooftop comes twice in the movie and stay for pretty much 10 minutes both times. By the end of the second one, you will start wishing whether you the scenes could have been chopped a bit to give more screentime to the other characters.

Verdict
‘Angrezi Medium’ is no ‘Hindi Medium’ yet it has its merits. Irrfan Khan is the welcome change from the usual gamut of actors and that makes this one a good watch. It’s definitely a ONE-TIME watch. Add a couple of stars for the brilliance of Irrfan and Deepak, I am going with 3 stars for this one

Box-Office
‘Angrezi Medium’ will grow on its merit and the enormous goodwill that Irrfan Khan has accumulated over the years. To add to it, the movie will have a huge amount of sympathy viewers who would come in just to see the magic of Irrfan Khan one more time onscreen. Even though the theatres at present aren’t running to their full capacities due to the scare across the country of Coronavirus, this movie could well be a welcome breath for all the troubles going on in your life currently. Its word-of-mouth publicity could make this survive beyond the first weekend.

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Also Read: ‘Kaamyaab’ Movie Review: Sanjay Mishra’s emotional ode to ‘side actors’ is sure to make you teary-eyed

Prateek Sur

Born a Movie Buff, working as a Film Critique and enjoying life as a Bollywood Reporter.

Email: editor@bollywoodbubble.com Phone: +91 8355910465