Khandaani Shafakhana
Director: Shilpi Dasgupta
Cast: Sonakshi Sinha, Badshah, Varun Sharma
Rating: 2 stars
Sexual dysfunctions in India are gathered under the title 'Gupt Rog' — which has the sad impact of making patients sound traumatised by the information of Kajol being the killer — and it is in fact impossible to miss that we keep on allotting such disgrace and mystery to any sexual issue.
With few individuals going to genuine sexologists, phrases utilized by professionals of sex centers (as well as for hucksters on the street)sound weirdly astrological as opposed to medical: those with very low motility are said to suffer from Nil Shukranu, for instance.
A few Indian patients are thusly routinely treated on the tricky, by Unani hakims — specialists working in the Hellenic custom — and Shilpi Dasgupta's presentation film Khandaani Shafakhana is about a facility kept running by a loved old specialist called Mamaji, played by the revered Kulbhushan Kharbanda, who has gone through decades fixing issues that individuals won't openly talk about. At some point, this Mamaji is executed by a previous patient who couldn't manage his overactive sex-drive: he murders the elderly person for having made him excessively virile.
The perusing of his will prompts a Maalamaal-like arrangement where the center is handed down to Mamaji's niece however relying on the prerequisite that she effectively runs the spot for a half year since Mamaji doesn't need his patients to feel relinquished.
Watch the trailer for Khandaani Shafakhana
It's a standard arrangement and the film's purpose is clear: to get individuals discussing their issues as opposed to being plagued by disgrace, and regularly confiding in a scam sales reps when they require help from qualified experts.
So far so clear. The problem arises when a film like this tries to play sexual troubles for laughs — making jokes of a wrestler with a broken penis, or a popular musician suffering from an erectile disorder — and while Khandaani Shafakhana tries to eventually reach out with empathy, the initial attempts at humour rise mostly from the heroine's disgust.
The other issue originates from the film's pointless endeavors at acting, yet these are both repetitive and crazy. In one scene, for example, a mother is expelled from her home and winds up giving a reminiscent discourse about pride and loss of face, yet then we never observe her living somewhere else.
Maybe the movie producers were told to amp up the dramatization to expand the narrating stakes — I continue imagining makers and administrators requesting more clash, the route characters in this film need more ghee on their parathas — and that damages this present film's straightforward, amiable soul.
A major positive originates from the rapper Badshah. As an overwhelming popstar called Gabru Ghattack — to rhyme with assault — he plays a man with the erectile issue who bellows about his concern minutes after he initially rises up out of an SUV, canvassed in hiding and bling like a brilliant teddybear.
He later will not assist the Shafakhana in light of the fact that, as he says, "Image is everything." It's a bold role for the musician to take, one that is aware of the connotations, as other characters in the film call him "a homo pop star" because his equipment doesn't work.
Again, the joke is on them and not him — but who is the audience laughing at? Still, big ups to the rapper to take on this persona. He's a man who likes spirit, and the character tells us that in as many words: "I respect jazba," he says, wearing a jacket that is somehow equal parts Sgt Peppers and Shiv Sena.
The niece running the show is magnificently named Baby Bedi, and played by the similarly alliterative Sonakshi Sinha. In spite of unmistakable endeavors at genuineness, the actor can't make the character work, and that isn't a direct result of her conflicting Punjabi highlight.
Infant Bedi is an inadequately composed character of accommodation, stupid in one scene and speedy in another, carrying on as the content needs her to, and not how the character would. She makes a decent attempt, however, her essence just underlines how this is essentially an Ayushmann Khurrana film without Ayushmann Khurrana.
There is, refreshingly, no legend to talk about. Priyanshu Jora, as a pleasant person who supports Bedi, doesn't get any chivalrous minutes but to grin at the young lady when most required, and is known in the film (and the end credits) just as Lemon Hero.
The film has some smashing lines — a street-side faker promises a client "Ab Tu Nahin, Teri khabrein aayengi," telling him that now the huckter won't hear from the client but instead hear only stories of his exploits — and there are fun actors in smaller parts. Annu Kapoor stars as a stern lawyer who is also part Captain Haddock (hearing the word "dunderheads" in a Punjabi accent is something I won't soon forget), he's opposed by an interestingly floppy-haired lawyer played by Arun Johra, and Rajesh Sharma shows up as a judge rightfully amused by all the cacophony.
The film culminates in an amusing courtroom free-for-all where the transcriptionist asks the judge if he should leave in the bits about sex. That's where Sharma, still laughing, gets briefly real as he says of course not. Sad but true.
As a nation, we need to talk about sex. We're obviously having enough of it to not be scandalised this easy. It's not all shock and haww.
