Plot:
Two unemployed, alcoholic friends who stumble upon confidential information about the Indian Army planning to attack Pakistan. They decide to sell this for a fortune. But things go awry when they meet a militant who wants the information.
Rating:
Team:
Director- Shreyas Jadhav
Cast- Suyog Gorhe, Hemant Dhome, Avinash Narkar, Rasika Sunil, Anuja Sathe
Story and Screenplay- Shreyas Jadhav, Rajesh Kolan and Manish Kori
Music- Harshvardhan Wavre
Cinematography- Maneesh Bhatt
Review:
Phakaat is an out and out flop show. Not even a single joke works in the 135 minutes of the film. This is straight from the category of MATALAB KUCH BHI flicks.
The story of the film starts with Major Abbas (Avinash Narkar) writing something phishy in a diary which is literally named LOC SECRETS. He is trying to send inside information of the Indian army to Pakistan agencies.
Meanwhile in a Maharshtrian village named Fauji Shikrapur which is famous for producing Soldiers from every house in the village, we meet two young boys. Raju (Suyog Gorhe) and Saleem (Hemant Dhome) are two completely wasted alcoholics who have nothing but girls and alcohol on their minds.
Both have become a complete disgrace for their own families as well as the village. After one of the soldiers from the village is martyred, they decide to shift to Pune for higher studies and join the Indian Army. Jumping to Pune, Raju has fallen in love with Lily (Rasika Sunil), the landlord’s daughter and Saleem has taken up delivery service as his new job.
One fine day, a confusion between the Major’s wife and Saleem leads to them getting hands on the LOC SECRETS file. This feels like a big fortune to both of them and so they decide to sell them in the market. Then start the chase for finding the right buyer and hiding from Major.
You can guess how the film doesn’t want to take itself seriously with such an implausible storyline and lazy direction of naming the file as LOC Secrets. The film is very unfunny and unbearable at times. Nothing, literally nothing works in its favour. The dull colour grading makes it even more miserable. Just like the two good-for-nothing leads, the film is also the same.
Coming to the technical aspects of the film, the cinematography is very basic and nothing great. The background score feels forced. The songs are really bad. The best thing the director could have done about this film was reject the script itself. The screenplay is below average. It jumps from being comedy to sultry to emotional in the span of literally 1 minute. Such is the mediocrity of the film. The performances from all the actors are pure overacting. Rasika is the only one who is bearable at least. The two leads played by Hemant Dhome and Suyog Gorhe are infused with energy but that fails to reflect on the screen. It even dares to tease a sequel. Save us God!!!
Everything that can go wrong with a film has gone wrong with Phakaat. It fails to step on one genre and loses itself in balancing so many genres. I was close to breaking my rule of leaving the theatre before the film ends. Marathi Cinema has become a roller coaster ride of gems and disappointments nowadays!
