Rating : ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: Drama
Year: 2023
Running time: 2 hours 4 minutes
Director: Vijay Maurya
Cast: Neena Gupta, Jackie Shroff, Abhishek Chauhan, Monica Panwar
Kid rating: G
This was an unexpected film. I didn’t really start it expecting much but it turned out to be such a great movie – pleasant, feel good and entertaining.
Mast Mein Reine Ka is about two elderly people, both single in their old age. There is V. S. Kamath (Jackie Shroff). He is a widower, retired and a grade A introvert. Lives in his first floor flat in Mumbai. And he’s very, very lonely. He’s trapped in his routines, in the mundane of the everyday – same old, same old. Rinse and repeat. Doesn’t talk much to other people. And just goes about just living one day after another. Until the burglary.
That lands him at the police station where he sees another victim. A woman, Prakash Handa (Neena Gupta). Elderly. Also single. There might be a pattern to the burglaries the police think. Meanwhile Prakash and Kamath get to talking. Or Parkash talks and Kamath listens.
Now Prakash is very different person than Kamath. She lives in Mumbai by herself with occasional visits to her son in Canada. We gather that she doesn’t quite get along with his family so she returns home to Mumbai in a huff, swearing never to go back to Canada again. Prakash is loquacious. She loves to talk and she talks to everyone. Speaks her mind too. When Kamath meets Prakash she’s like a breath of fresh air in his hitherto friendless world.
There’s a also a third main character in this film, the thief who’s been burgling all these apartments. He’s a poor tailor, Nanhe, who has come to Mumbai to find work and run into a spot of bad luck. To make ends meet, he takes to burgling apartments of older people.
Kamat and Parkash join forces to track down the thief. Together they keep an eye of comings and goings in the neighborhood, but Nanhe is swift and nimble on his feet. Will Kamat and Prakash be able to catch him?
Kamath and Parkash, and even Nanhe are likable, sympathetic characters. And you root for them. Neena Gupta is a great actress. So I was expecting the world from her. What I was not expecting was to have the fantastic performance by Jackie Shroff. I didn’t actually know that he could act like that! Abhishek Chauhan as the pitiful Nanhe is also very, very good. There is also the girl he likes, a lady of the street called Rani. Monica Panwar (who you might have seen in the excellent series Jamtara), plays Rani with aplomb.
Mast Mein Rehne Ka is a heartwarming film, and tugs at your heartstrings. It’s about loneliness and despair and overcoming them to find the happiness that should rightfully be yours.
The film is directed by Vijay Maurya, who is an actor and now a director. This is his third film as director. And it is such a great film that I do hope he makes many many more.
Highly recommended.
Kidwise: Clean.
