‘EKDA YEUN TAR BAGHA’ (MARATHI) REVIEW | 8 December, 2023

Ideas The Entertainment Company, Gold Mountain Pictures, SR Enterprises, Swarna Pat Katha and Kaleidoscope Cinema & Picture’s Ekda Yeun Tar Bagha (Marathi; UA) is the story of a family which starts a hotel in the village.

The Phulambrikar family comprises eldest brother Shravan (Girish Kulkarni), his wife, Rohini (Tejaswini Pandit), middle brother, Falgun (Prasad Khandekar), and youngest brother, Kartik (Onkar Bhojane). Rohini’s sister, Ashwini (Namrata Sambherao), also lives with the Phulambrikar family.

The family decides to convert their ancestral residence in the village into a hotel as the village is soon to be promoted by the government as a tourist spot. But accidents keep taking place once the hotel — named Ekda Yeun Tar Bagha Hotel — is functional. People keep dying in the hotel one after the other. The Phulambrikar family keeps burying the bodies in the land belonging to it so as not to get into legal hassles. What happens thereafter?

Paritosh Painter has written a story that is exaggerated so much that its comic flavour loses impact. Of course, there’s no logic since it is designed as a comedy but even then, the question that begs an answer is: why does police inspector Bhosle (Rajendra Shisatkar) help the Phulambrikar family in the end? Prasad Khandekar’s screenplay is so-so. Except for some entertaining comedy, there’s precious little else in the drama. Dialogues, penned by Prasad Khandekar, are average.

Girish Kulkarni does a fair job as Shravan. Tejaswini Pandit plays the innocent Rohini very well. Prasad Khandekar is okay as Falgun. Namrata Sambherao is quite alright in the role of Ashwini. Onkar Bhojane performs ably as Kartik. Sayaji Shinde acts quite well as Nutan Seth. Bhau Kadam is average as Gulabi Garam Baba. Vishakha Subhedar is okay in a brief role as Magru. Paddy Kamble (as government officer Surve), Sushil Inamdar (as government officer Chavan), Rajendra Shisatkar (as police inspector Bhosle), Vanita Kharat (as Shrivalli), Rohit Mane (as Bahubali) and Shashikant Kerkar (as the first customer of the hotel) lend routine support.

Prasad Khandekar’s direction is average. Rohan-Rohan and Kashyap Sompura’s music is ordinary. Lyrics (Mandar Cholkar) are passable. Sujit Kumar’s choreography passes muster. Rohan-Rohan’s background music is alright. Yogesh Koli’s camerawork is fair. Production designing (by Yogesh Ingale) is okay. Nilesh Gavand’s editing is quite sharp.

On the whole, Ekda Yeun Tar Bagha may have good comedy but it doesn’t have bright commercial prospects.

Released on 8-12-’23 at Plaza (daily 1 show) and other cinemas of Bombay thru August Entertainment. Publicity: so-so. Opening: poor.