‘The Legend of Michael Mishra’ movie review: Flat and predictable

Directed by: Manish Jha
Produced by: Kishor Arora, Shareen Mantri Kedia
Cast: Boman Irani, Arshad Warsi, Aditi Rao Hydari
Duration: 2 hours 20 minute
Bollywood Bubble Rating: 2/5

In one of the promotional interviews of ‘The Legend of Michael Mishra’, director Manish Jha giggled, “After making two socially relevant films (‘Matribhumi’ and ‘Anwar’) which nobody watched, I badly wanted to make something socially irrelevant.” “Watch it. It’s completely bizarre”, he added.

After being through the film, we do agree. It is COMPLETELY bizarre and irrelevant. Contrary to the claims made by the director and lead actor Arshad Warsi, it is not even funny most of the times!

Michael Mishra (Arshad Warsi), a tailor-turned-kidnapper is in love with Varsha Shukla (Aditi Rao Hydari).  Michael keeps kidnapping women randomly, just to find his lost ladylove! Varsha wants him to be a good son-in-law material and leave all the illegal stuff he is involved into. What happens after that is a much predictable and mostly unfunny story.

The saddest part of the film is how such talented resources have been wasted. A brilliant actor like Boman Irani has nothing to do, apart from delivering a running commentary of how the story progresses. Arshad Warsi, another genius, is limited to delivering forceful attempts of making us laugh. Aditi Rao Hydari was going good, but the forced skin show imposed upon her ruins it all.

‘The Legend of Michael Mishra’ is not a poor film when it comes to technical aspect. The makers have spent well on locations, sets and camera work. The music is interesting; a number of composers including Meet Bros and Abhinav Bansal create a variety of tunes which are well suited with the flow of the story. This is where it hurts even more. At the end, the film fails solely due to a very poor screenplay as it has absolutely nothing new to offer.

Arshad Warsi, however, despite having little to do, is very good. Apart from Boman Irani, the one who deserves a special mention is Kayoze Irani, Boman’s son, who plays a faithful follower of Arshad. He does make his presence felt.

The star-cast is the only good thing about the film. Why did Irani and Warsi agree to do the film will remain a question for quite some time now. Verdict? You won’t miss anything if you skip this one!

WATCH TRAILER

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65NKr4jJkqY