Saturday, January 7, 2012

Chillar Party - Movie Review

The movies for 2012 started on a good note as well with Chillar Party, a movie I wanted to watch in the theatres but could not. It is a fun story of children in a society in Mumbai called Chandan Nagar and how they go about saving their friend and his dog.

Set in a lovely colony or society as they are called in Mumbai, the Chillar party gang consists entirely of a young boys of about 8-12 years I'd guess. They play cricket, ride around on their bikes, sit in an old unused shed and generally do all that little kids do. Its a nice gang as well with nicknames such as Akram, Panauti, Encyclopedia, Jhangiya, Second hand, Silencer and so on. They lose all their cricket matches to their neighbouring oversized cricket team and have a problem with a society dog that relieves itself on their cricket pitch everyday. Just as they are wishing they had no dogs in their life comes a young boy Fatka to replace the man who cleans the society cars, with his dog, a mongrel named Bhidu. The Chillar Party does not like the idea of another dog in the society and to all sorts of things to get rid of dog and owner. But they give up finally and even become friends when Fatka and Bhidu help them beat their oversized enemy cricket team. Danger lurks when Minister Bhide comes to the colony and his PA is atatcked by Bhidu. Bhide starts a campaihn against unlicensed dogs and says that all dogs that have no NOCs from their societies will be captured, Bhidu is one of them as the society members do not sign. How the Chillar Party fights tooth and nail for Fatka and Bhidu is the rest of the story.

I saw that as usual the reviewers have been very conservative in their reviews and have stuck to the 3-4 star band which is safe. Also it is the kind of a movie where they can express their expertise on the newcomers freely and dissect everything technically, something which they do not when big star movies come out. Chillar Party definitely has more going for it than 4 stars, which is the least it should get. It may not be the most earth shattering of themes, but to tell a simple story honestly and simply, is more the need of the hour these days when nothing we see on the screen seems to make sense except for the guys who are raking the cash home. Fine performances by the kids, a delightful story, some wonderful lessons for everyone concerned, specially children who are bound to watch the movie, and many more lessons for adults who tend to forget their lessons as they grow old (a dialogue in the movie says so). Great honest effort by Nitesh Tiwari and Vikas Bahl, and a must watch for everyone, big and small.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I really want to contradict your review,i think even children cant be as childish as this movie!

Harimohan said...

Fair enough Anon. Thanks for sharing your views.