Nikamma Review: Damp Squib!

NIKAMMA

Producer: Sony Pictures International Produtions

Director: Sabbir Khan

Cast: Abhimanyu Dassani, Shilpa Shetty, Shirley Setia , Samir Soni and Abhhimanyu Singh

Platform of Release: Theatrical

Rating:

By Jyothi Venkatesh

This stale remake of Middle Class Abbayi (Telugu), starring Nani and Sai Pallavi, aims to present the loud melodramatic story of a middle class family, its beliefs, actions and reactions to tough situations. The film sets out to revolve around Adi (Abhimanyu Dassani) an aimless young man, who has no other alternative but to live with his bhabhi Avni (Shilpa Shetty), an honest RTO officer.

His elder brother, Raman (Samir Soni) dotes on him and fulfils all his wishes, but after Raman gets married to Avni , he begins to shower all his love on her. Adi feels neglected and in anger, he leaves the house and stays with his paternal uncle (Sachin Khedekar) for more than a year. They seem emotionally disconnected from one another, and also at logger heads with one another, until circumstances bring out the truth to Adi.

The realisation dawns on the young lad that his bhabhi has always been on his side and was always willing to make sacrifices to see that he succeeded. When a threat looms large on Avni’s life, it is time for Adi to decide to discreetly guard her bhabhi. Unfortunately what the film sets out to do is present a confused  as well as ‘predictable to the core’  tale of a young lad, whiling away his life and family’s money, until he’s made to realise his sister-in-law’s true emotions for him. The tale is set in a fictitious small-town like Dhaamli.

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As far as performances  of the cast is concerned, all I can say is that the evergreen Shilpa Shetty Kundra looks stunning and performs well in the limited character that she has on her hands. Though Abhimanyu Dassani shows promise as an actor, sadly the lad fails to find support from the writing as well as direction departments. As Natasha, Shirley Setia is pretty wooden to the core but has very little scope to display any of her wares as an actress. Even the romantic angle between her and Abhimanyu doesn’t stick. What is shocking is the fact that otherwise quite formidable actors like Sachin Khedekar, Samir Soni and Vikram Gokhale, and Sudesh Lehri have been relegated to side roles and what’s more, grossly wasted by the makers.

Abhimanyu Singh is spot-on as the baddie, though at times, he gets a bit over-the-top and uncomfortably loud but it works for his character. Samir Soni is average. Vikram Gokhale (Major) is fine in the cameo. Sachin Khedekar is dependable. The Hindi remake of a Telugu hit falters at way too many places and defies common sense and logic at regular intervals, thanks to its weak points like story (Venu Sriram), besides editing and direction. The worst aspect of the film is that the director seems to forget to focus on the young lead pair and focus on the bhabhi almost throughout the film.

All said and done, the film , the press show of which was held at the unearthly hour of 9.15 am on the day of its release, can be easily skipped!