T-Series and Sundial Productions’ Khandaani Shafakhana (UA) is a sex comedy.
Baby Bedi (Sonakshi Sinha) lives with her mother (Nadira Babbar) and brother, Bhooshit (Varun Sharma). Her sister, Sheetu (Shirin Sewani), is married. The family had taken loan from Baby’s paternal uncle (Rajiv Gupta) for Sheetu’s marriage, which loan still remains unpaid. The uncle is pestering Baby’s family for the loan repayment and tells her point-blank to otherwise hand over possession of the house they live in so that he can start a boutique for his daughter there. Obviously, Baby and her family don’t want to give up their house as they don’t have another place to stay in.
News comes in that Baby’s maternal uncle (Kulbhushan Kharbanda), a Unani medical practitioner, had been killed. He used to run a sex clinic, and his disapproving sister had severed all ties with him as she considered his profession obscene.The Unani medical practitioner’s lawyer, Tagra (Annu Kapoor), calls the Bedi family and reads out the deceased uncle’s will. As per his will, the sex clinic would go to Baby after his death. But only if she ran the clinic for at least six months would she be entitled to own it and also own his house. It was specifically spelt out in the will that if Baby did not keep the sex clinic up and running for six months after his death, she would get neither his house nor the clinic. Baby’s mother is disgusted by the very thought of Baby running the clinic but Baby sees this as the only opportunity which could help her repay the loan, taken from her paternal uncle. Hence much to the shock of people, she starts running the sex clinic but doesn’t let her agitated mother know this.
Patients with sexual problems are embarrassed to talk about them in front of a girl but Baby manages to dispense medicines as her uncle used to keep them stocked. However, Baby is at her wits’ end when she can’t find the medicines for Gabru Ghatack (Baadshah) who is suffering from erectile dysfunction. She now starts referring to her late uncle’s medical books and makes the medicine for Gabru. There’s a reason why she doesn’t want to let go of Gabru – he is the only rich patient from whom she can make a lot of money.
Law soon catches up with Baby for practising as a Unani doctor without having a degree. What happens thereafter?
Gautam Mehra has penned a silly story which, although designed as a comedy, is far from being funny. The comic story actually falls flat on its face because there’s just no humour which is created. His screenplay is so boring and contrived that the audience actually finds its patience being tested. Every scene or almost every scene is so over the top that the comedy, or whatever there is of it, irritates the viewers instead of tickling their funny bone. The patients feeling embarrassed in front of Baby, the other shopkeepers around the sex clinic gaping at Baby wide-eyed or mocking at her when she attends the clinic daily, or Baby herself trying to make herself comfortable in the sex clinic, all these scenes are so poorly written that the fun element goes flying out of the window and what remain are thrust-in-your-face and trying-too-hard-to-be-funny scenes. Obviously, the humour in these scenes is completely lost. The courtroom drama is also penned in a haphazard manner. Gautam Mehra’s dialogues are not half as funny as they should’ve been.
If the scripting is poor, the performances by the artistes are hardly any better. Most of the actors seem to be clueless about subtle acting. As a result, they end up overacting to the hilt. Sonakshi Sinha has a frown plastered on her face for no explicable reason, almost all through the film. Her acting is not upto the mark as there’s just no variation in her performance. Baadshah makes a dull debut. In the role of Gabru Ghatack, he gets very limited scope. His performance is not at all impressive; the introduction scene, in which he is seen crying, is terrible because his style of crying is pathetic. Varun Sharma is hardly funny. It’s sad to see Varun fritter away his talent in such an insipid fare. Nadira Babbar is natural. Annu Kapoor is earnest as lawyer Tagra but does go overboard at times. Kulbhushan Kharbanda is okay. Priyansh Jora looks nice and his acting, as the lemon hero, is alright. Rajiv Gupta makes his presence felt as Baby’s paternal uncle. Rajesh Sharma has his moments as the judge. Shirin Sewani lends fair support as Sheetu. Baby Khushi Hajare is cute as young Baby Bedi. Hobby Dhaliwal (as Pradhan) and Ashwin Kaushal (as Dr. Bindra) provide routine support. Others are ordinary.
Shilpi Dasgupta’s direction is no better than the lacklustre script. She has just not been able to create comic situations. Consequently, the narration looks laboured and ineffectual. Music (by Baadshah, Tanishk Bagchi, Payal Dev and Rochak Kohli) is fairly nice but there’s not a single hit song. The ‘Koka’ song (music by Tanishk Bagchi) is the best number. Other songs are quite alright. Lyrics (Baadshah, Kumaar, Tanishk Bagchi, Mellow D, Shabbir Ahmed, Gautam G. Sharma and Gurpreet Saini) are ordinary. Song picturisations (by Vijay Ganguly) are commonplace. Abhishek Nailwal’s background music is functional. Rishi Punjabi’s camerawork is average. Production designing (by Mayur Sharma) is okay. Dev Rao Jadhav’s editing could’ve been tighter.
On the whole, Khandaani Shafakhana is a flop show all the way. It’s a comedy which will throw up tragic box-office figures because it hardly makes the audience laugh or even smile.
Released on 2-8-’19 at Inox (daily 3 shows) and other cinemas of Bombay thru Panorama Studios and Anand Pandit Motion Pictures. Publicity: so-so. Opening: poor. …….Also released all over. Opening was weak everywhere.