Zee Studios and Anil Sharma Productions’ Vanvaas (UA) is the story of ungrateful children who consider their aged parents a burden and an intrusion on their time and space.
Deepak Tyagi (Nana Patekar) lives with his three children — Somu (Hemant Kher), Bablu (Ketan Singh) and Chhutka (Paritosh Tripathi). The three sons are married and so the daughters-in-law — Manjari (Bhakti Rathore), Anchal (Snehil Dixit Mehra) and Pooja (Shruti Marathe) — and the grandchildren also live in the same bungalow lovingly named Vimla Sadan after Deepak Tyagi’s wife, Vimla Tyagi (Khushbu Sundar), who is no more. Deepak suffers from dementia and believes, Vimla is still alive and around. The three scheming sons and their wives take their father to Varanasi and leave him there in the crowd as they want to usurp his property and since they also find him a burden. Since he suffers from dementia, they are sure, he wouldn’t return. Back home, they announce that he had drowned in Ganga river.
Veeru (Utkarsh Sharma) is an orphan who, under the guise of being a tourist guide in Varanasi, loots hapless tourists. He is aided by Pappu (Rajpal Yadav) and Anda Roll (Satendra Soni). Veeru is in love with Meena (Simrat Kaur) whose maternal aunt, Rampatiya mausi (Ashwini Kalsekar), can’t dream of seeing the two married. She supplies girls as escorts to willing tourists.
How Veeru ensures that Deepak Tyagi — who can’t even remember his own address — meets his children forms the crux of the drama. What happens once Deepak Tyagi comes face-to-face with his family which had declared him dead?
Anil Sharma, Sunil Sirvaiya and Amjad Ali have written a story which is well-intentioned but their screenplay is so weak that the emotions of the viewers are simply not aroused. Although the story-line is emotional, the drama just doesn’t touch the heart. Even the bond between Deepak Tyagi and Veeru looks superficial and fake. The audience don’t feel emotionally invested in the characters or the drama and, therefore, view the proceedings as mere spectators. In the absence of emotional attachment to any character, the viewers find it weird when the whole entourage accompanies Veeru and Deepak Tyagi from Varanasi to Palanpur to unite Tyagi with his family. After all, what is their contribution in the entire trip? And what difference is it going to make to them (Rampatiya mausi, Pappu, Anda Roll and, for that matter, Meena also) if Deepak Tyagi is united with his family or not? The romance between Veeru and Meena is half-baked and far from heartwarming. The light moments fail to evoke laughter or even smiles. And, as mentioned above, the emotions are so unreal that they don’t move the viewers. Another major minus point is that the drama is so verbose that the audience actually feel exhausted by the mid-point. To add to their misery is the fact that the characters often scream and shout too much. There is also a lot of unnecessary sermonising. The trio’s dialogues are not half as good as they should’ve been in a film of this kind.
Nana Patekar does very well as Deepak Tyagi, but with a weak script like this, the performance is hardly comforting for the audience. Khushbu Sundar looks pretty as Vimla Tyagi and performs ably in a brief role. Utkarsh Sharma is average in the role of Veeru. Simrat Kaur performs freely as Meena but her costumes don’t go with the surroundings (Varanasi). Hemant Kher is quite good as Somu. Ketan Singh is nice in the role of Bablu. Paritosh Tripathi makes his mark as Chhutka. Bhakti Rathore performs ably as Manjari. Snehil Dixit Mehra is effective as Anchal. Shruti Marathe makes a fine mark as Pooja. Rajpal Yadav, as Pappu, acts well but his comedy is so shoddily written that it doesn’t evoke laughter. Rajesh Sharma is alright as lawyer Gautam Gupta. Ashwini Kalsekar is a bit over the top as Rampatiya mausi. Her accent and diction at the beginning are conveniently forgotten as the drama progresses. Manish Wadhwa has his moments in a brief appearance as Madhav. Virendra Saxena is okay as Shukla. Satendra Soni is natural as Anda Roll. Sanjay Mehndiratta (as DGP Hargobind), Mushtaq Khan (as police inspector Lal Singh), Rajeev Gupta (as Param Negi), Rumi Khan (as Shrikant), Muneesh Sappel (as photographer Shyam), Hanish Lamba (as NDRF officer Malik), Shashvita Sriwastav (as Dr. Anjali), Tejas Raut (as young Deepak), Konika Sudha (as young Vimla), Shailendra Gaur (as Dhyanchand), Jawahar Lal (as Dangwal), Nidhi Yasha (as Julie), Ashutosh Kaushik (as Titu), Amitabh (as Badam Singh), Prashant Bajaj (as Pushkar Kapoor), Reyansh Chauhan (as little Sonu), Suryanash Chauhan (as little Bablu), Shivaye (as little Chhutka), Ravi Roshan (as the ration card official), Sania Khorra, Paridhima Bhatiya, Khivyansh Bhatiya, Sambhalika Drall, Aquil Rakta (all five as Deepak Tyagi’s grandchildren), Pramod Pandey (as manager of Vriddha Ashram), Javed Shaikh (as Shimla DM), Naresh Jha (as Dangwal’s goon) and the others lend ordinary support.
Anil Sharma’s direction is not of the kind which will suck the audience into the drama. Scenes are often lengthy and boring. Mithoon’s music (one song composed by Monty Sharma) is alright and although the songs are melodious, they are not popular. Saeed Quadri’s lyrics (one song written by Sunil Sirvaiya) are quite nice. Shabina Khan’s choreography is very ordinary. Monty Sharma’s background music is fair. Kabir Lal’s camerawork is very good. Sham Kaushal’s action and stunt scenes are more functional than anything else because the scope for action is very limited. Muneesh Sappel’s production designing is okay. Sanjay Sankla’s editing is fairly sharp, but that doesn’t ensure that there are no dull moments; rather, there are plenty of them.
On the whole, Vanvaas is a very boring fare which will not cut ice with the public. Neither the family audience nor the youth will appreciate the film which will prove to be a non-starter in the final tally.
Released on 20-12-’24 at Inox (daily 1 show) and other cinemas of Bombay by Zee Studios. Publicity: fair. Opening: dull. …….Also released all over. Opening was very weak everywhere.
