Munnabhai MBBS was a landmark film in the history of Indian cinema. Humor was restricted to slapstick or double entendres and this movie came like a welcome relief emphasising the need for a good story and dialogues and actors to carry it off. When the makes decide to make another movie on the same lines, it definitely stokes curiosity and does the second movie in this league live up to the expectation? It does and it better the first one.
The story
Murliprasad Sharma aka Munnabhai and Circuit are this time thugs who take care of vacating flats and property for a high profile builder called Lucky. Munnabhai this time is smitten by the voice of a Worldspace RJ Jhanvi. He's glued to her voice each morning and when he gets chance to meet her after taking a quiz content on air, he wins it in typical Munna/Circuit style which will bring the house down. On air with Jhanvi Munna get's into further trouble by telling that he was a professor and also a big fan and follower of Mahatma Gandhi.
Munnabhai gets a chance to go to Jhanvi's place to give a lecture on Bapu for which he spends time studying about Bapu and meet Bapu in the process. Bapu agrees to help him in the process but wants a favor from Munna in return. Jhanvi lives with her Grandfather and his friends in a place that is named '2nd Innings house'. Munna delivers a zabardast lecture and answers their questions making Jhanvi fall in love with him and earns the goodwill of all the old men there.
The story takes off in a different direction from here caused by some twisted events which bring Jhanvi's life to a standstill and from there on it's Munnabhai fighting for Jhanvi and her gang of old men. Not the typical dadahagiri that we know he is capable off. But Gandhigiri, yes Munna embraces the path of non-violence and truth and keeps us in splits during the process. Keeping up his word with Bapu, Munna discloses the truth about the real person he is to Jhanvi and looses his lady love.
What happens next? Does the path of truth ever work out well for individuals? Does Jhanvi come back to Munnabhai? How can one possible explain the presence of Bapu in the movie? All questions are answered in the movie sensibly with some surprises toward the end.
Credits
Sanjay Dutt looks like he was born to be Munnabhai, he might not have been one amongst the great actors in our country. But by now I am sure that nobody else can play Munnabhai so well like he does. Arshad Warse as Circuit does a splendid job. The scene where Munna apologises to circuit deserves special mention.
Jhanvi is a character ably played by Vidya Balan. She's beautiful and one of my friend felt her beauty was coming between the audience and her character. I thought otherwise. She excels in the role and somehow showed how much more effective Gracy Singh's character in the first part could have been. Boman Irani as Lucky proves once again that he's one of the finest actors in the country. He plays the role of a Sardar to perfection and amazes us with his body language and dialog delivery. Dia Mirza makes an appearance in the second half and so does Parikshant Sahni a Jimmy Shergill. Abishek Bachchan makes a cameo appearance in the last couple of minutes. Kulbhushan Karbanda and Saurabh Shukla play their parts well. The doctor from the old movie appears in this movie as a lawyer for a minute or perhaps two.
Every single character in the movie play their part to perfection. One song deserves special mention for the innovative way it's been shot and that is 'Samjho ho hi gaya'. All songs in this movie are simple and hummable. Shanthanu Moitra has delivered the good without complicating things on the aural arena. The background score also is fitting and appropriate. Camerawork by Muraleedharan is adequate and neat. Goa is always beautiful, it looks superb in the movie. All credits for this movie should go to the director Rajkumar Hirani, he's simply taken his original characters and set them in a new ambience and has bettered his first attempt.
Verdict
Lagay raho Munnabhai is not a sequel by any chance. It's more like the James Bond movies where the characters are known but they are set in different stories in different movies. To sum it up all, Munnabhai is a first rate movie that relates to the human spirit in each of us. It's a must see movie and the laughs that one get watching it is wholesome and deviod of the usual masala that bollywood attempts. For once, I was so very glad to see a movie which had no 'item' number. I only hope they keep the Munnabhai series rolling so that we can get treated to a new fare each time.
Trivia
# Worldspace is a satellite radio service. In this movie it's shown like a normal FM radio service.
# Worldspace doesn't yet have a receiver that can be fitted into cars. I know this for sure since I tried to get one for my car last year. Since it requires line of sight, retro fitting a receiver into a car like it's show in the police's jeep in the movie wouldn't actually serve any purpose unless one was driving on sky scrapers.
# The explanation given by the Psychiatrist in the movie for Munna seeing Bapu seems very convincing.
