Matru Ki Bijli Ka Mandola
U/A; Comedy
Director: Vishal Bhardwaj
Cast: Pankaj Kapur, Shabana Azmi, Anushka Sharma, Imran Khan and Arya Babbar
Rating:u00a0

O panjo, panjo, first things first. It is such a pleasure to see actors like Pankaj Kapur and Shabana Azmi back in the driver’s seat. With just their bearing, stance and such ease, the pair brings so much maturity and depth to their characters. It is a pity though that they have to be a part of such a half-baked plot.

Matru’s plot is a wisp floating in the breeze over the ripe wheat fields of the Mandola village in Haryana, unable to decide whether to be a mad slapstick, a social satire, a colonial farce or a modern comedy. And so it ends up just drifting - sometimes veering toward a sober Hariya Mandola, greedy industrialist in cahoots with grasping local minister-cum-longstanding ‘girlfriend’ (Shabana Azmi) wanting to sell off the farmers’ lands to transform his village into an industrial hub. And at times toward his drunk-as-a-skunk alter ego who understands the villagers’ plight and wants to give them their due.