Ashwin Dheer.. Have Mercy

Ashwin Dheer is the man behind the very successful comedy tele-series ‘Office Office’; whose lead Mussadi Lal (played effectively by Pankaj Kapur) epitomizes the common man at the mercy of the notorious Indian bureaucracy. He has written many other light hearted television programs and has been fairly successful.

But then Bollywood embraced him with open arms. After all ‘Office Office’ had been sweeping all television awards since years. I wish him good luck that in coming years he achieves a similar success in Hindi films. Although the stuff he has dished out in last 3 weeks has made me curse him many times.

First came his directorial debut – ‘One Two Three’. It seems he ghost directed it or sleep walked through the movie. He struggles so badly as wannabe Priyadarshan that even Priyan’s bad movies like ‘Dhol’ can pass off as masterpieces. The movie has a cast of non actors like Upen Patel and even good actors like Paresh Rawal are seen peddling lingerie and cracking gross jokes. The screenplay of the movie is childish and is too trivial and predictable even for a No Brainer. I was so tired of not laughing at the gags in the movie that I did laugh in a sequence post interval. Actually it was a smart comment from someone in audience which had that effect. The only good thing about movie was that Upen Patel and Tannisha had miniscule roles. On the contrary I suppose it was good for them too ;-)

Then came his D Day on April 11! He had two releases on that day. He has written dialogues for Ajay Devgan’s directorial debut ‘U Me Aur Hum’. Now the movie itself isn’t that bad. Okay it is inspired by another movie – ‘The Notebook’. I haven’t seen that though. But still Ajay has done a decent job. The movie post interval has gripping drama. And as actors both Ajay and Kajol have done exceedingly well. But the irritating first half where the story never moves ahead gave me a headache. Also Ajay in his enthusiasm has used two techniques which were not at all required and looked jarring in the movie. He used split screen shots (more useful in action movie or thrillers) and close up shots of actors (hang over of RGV Ki Aag I suppose). But a decent storyline & script more or less made up for these technical anamolies. But one can’t forgive Ashwin for the vulgar dialogues he has written for the movie. There are so many double-entendres in the movie that I saw parents (who had come with their kids) squirming with embarrassment in their seats. After all, the movie was publicized as a family entertainer. I wish Ashwin understands one thing that comedy doesn’t mean crass dialogues with veiled references to sexual acts. That used to work in 90’s. It doesn’t work anymore.

On the same day released ‘Krazzy4’. It is produced by Rakesh Roshan. It has item numbers by Rakhi Sawant, Hrithik Roshan and Shahrukh Khan. It has 5 good actors in it. Irrfan Khan, Arshad Warsi, Rajpal Yadav, Suresh Menon and Juhi Chawla makes a dream cast for the debutante director Jaideep Sen. The good things about the movie just end there. It seemingly has a lifted song, a copied story and item songs which have no connect with the movie. It’s a movie which is so boring that watching a re-run of ‘Office Office’ would have been fun. And guess what, the movie is written by Ashwin Dheer. Written? It is inspired by some movie called ‘Dream Team’. Oh! I forgot another good thing about the movie. It ends well within 2 hours.

I don’t know what is going through his mind right now. I love his ‘Office Office’. And I think he can do better than his recent efforts. But for time being Ashwin take a break and have mercy on us…

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