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Director: Raj Kumar Hirani
Music: Anu Malik
Cast: Sunil Dutt, Sanjay Dutt, Arshad Warsi, Boman Irani, Gracy Singh, Rohini Hattangadi
Ladies and gentlemen we have a new doctor in the house. He doesn't guarantee the success of his remedies, nor is he a slave to the conventional methods of medicine.
For that matter, conventionality stretches its limits when it comes to his work place. A hospital on the banks of a - dhobhi ghat, where "dhulai karwana" doesn't mean a thorough spin cycle on the washing machine but a basic mercenary attack. Home remedies apply as far as they involve a bit of slap and tickle. A walk through his hospital might reveal it to be nothing more than a stage prop and his slightly able albeit dubious looking staff might turn out to be uncanny look-alikes on the police's most wanted list. But all this doesn't explain the mile long line of satisfied patients pouring out in an endless stream from its portals. Nor the mile long line for tickets to watch the doctor in action - again and again.
Dare we attribute the success to the one-man show of Sanjay Dutt strutting his way to galliwala fame? As brilliantly and timely his deliveries had been, it would to be too much to presume the success to rest so squarely on his shoulders. Here is a film that combines the efforts of actors, directors, editors and scriptwriters drawing on each other's potential and exploiting them to full use.
Sanjay Dutt plays the local don adept at financial deals that translate to ransoms and the odd mercenary deal. Business thrives until his father arrives who's been fed a fib about Dutt being a doctor. Out go the synthetic shirts and in come the cotton sheets, face masks and stretchers. It's an elaborate farce that flows smoothly till a few hitches unravel Dutt's dirty secret.
It's a script where even Groucho Marx might have deigned a smile. Quips and cracks are pulled out from everyday lingo, falling easily not just on the cast but also on audience ears, so far so used to the stale rendition of crass and forgettable one liners. Here lies the simplicity of a dialogue where one laughs along and not at.
The dynamism of the scriptwriter would fall short had the actors found themselves short of an equally demanding vigor. Yes of course it's all in a days work for Sanjay Dutt. Despite the fact that his looks demand a reasonable amount of suspension of disbelief, he manages to caricaturize a figure who carries the audience through the gamut of emotions from hapless indignation (against his future sasurji) to endearments that seem oddly out of place sometimes (especially when he begs to be ragged and shows off an apparently chiseled body).
Complementing him are the stately and understated performances of Boman Irani and Sunil Dutt - old school actors finishing off with snatches of present day slap stick deliveries.
But the man of the hour, winning hands down is Circuit played by Arshad Warsi. Here is a man who lives true to his calling - a bhai's left- right, you name it, whichever hand. With wisecracks that roll off as smoothly as water off a fish, he conducts the ceremonies with the quick witted pace of a fine comedian.
In the guise of a comic caper, we are treated to a well crafted film that cleverly buoys the comedy with real issues - the insensitivity and callousness with which doctors treat patients and the dogmatic approach to life and health through messy layers of bureaucracy - a palpable and horrific reality that have at numerous times claimed lives. It's a film that gives us hope that we can treated as intelligent beings capable of recognizing sharp humour without it being drum beaten all around us, demanding laughs a minute.
-- Rituparna Som
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