Known for his Police detection stories, writer Shrikant Sinker had also written in the past a play ‘Aaliya Bhogasi’ based on a team of mentally unstable people in a mental asylum, who only think of their past profession and enact their skills all the time. Producer Mahesh Manjrekar, perhaps got inspired with that play, while projecting his characters through his new film ‘Shahanpan Dega Deva’, which also revolves around 5 such mentally unstable characters( Bharat Jadhav, Siddharth Jadhav, Ankush Choudhary, Vaibhav Mangale & Sanjay Narvekar), who are being treated in his own way at a private Mental asylum by Dr. Subodh ( played by Mahesh himself) , attached to that asylum.

Mr. Manjrekar known for his offerings on sensational subjects, this time thought of moving into comedy and hence selected this performance oriented film with the sole motive of entertaining the audience. Directed jointly by Atul kale and Sudesh Manjrekar, the producer has himself got involved into the screenplay and dialogues in the company of Abhijeet Deshpande and Sanjay Pawar. There is nothing much seriously happening into the screenplay, except for theose mischievous acts by the five characters , which only encourage competition among themselves. It only looked like that the directors had during the pre-interval stage had given complete freedom to them, resulting into overacting by atleast two characters.

‘Shahanpan Dega Deva’ is a male dominated film, as the three girls namely Manva, Kranti and Poorva play just show pieces and have been rightly used in the climax scene as item girls. Manva makes her appearance just at the stroke of interval, while Kranti comes in almost towards the end of the film. Most of the scenes in the film are based on ‘mind act’ done by each character and among them Sanjay Narvekar invites all the attention for his cricket gimmicks that go very well with his body language. His character also springs a surprise in the climax, thus turning him into a real hero.

Watching the performances of other artistes, Bharat Jadhav, Vaibhav Mangale, Ankush Choudhary and Mahesh Manjrekar himself are all within their limits, except for Siddharth, who has been controlled in the second half, avoiding dialogues for him. Kamlakar Satpute, playing the gay Don is just fine; nothing exceptional about his performance, as we have seen such characters on the screen in the past. Since the film has Bollywood flavour, he reminds you of Kulbhushan Kharbanda in ‘Shaan’, but doesn’t look dangerous. Among the three doctors from the asylum playing villains, Kishore Kadam is impressive. Others in the supporting cast have done well, but Santosh Juvekar has been wasted in that ordinary looking side role.

There isn’t much scope for music in the film, except for the so called item number in the climax, where lavani has been performed in a different style. The background music sounded loud pre interval, but has been used well in the later part of the film. Cinematography by Ajit Reddy is good . The film is likely to impress the kind of audience who enjoy watching TV shows like ‘Comedy Circus’ and ‘Fu bai Fu’, as this film is based only on performances to entertain the audience with a given theme.

by Ulhas Shirke  © MMW