Saha & Sons Studios and Ideas The Entertainment Company’s The Defective Detectives (English; A) is a comedy.
Maria (Shweta Gulati) has to recover Rs. 10 crore from Ganesh D’Souza (Bharat Dabholkar) for a villa he had usurped from her father who is no more. Three friends — the blind Shree (Siddharth Jadhav), the deaf Aadi (Paritosh Painter) and the mute Manav (Jayesh Thakkar) — come to her rescue. Since they are down and out, they have started a business as detectives. They volunteer to help Maria recover the money from Ganesh D’Souza. They hatch a plot to get Rs. 10 crore out of D’Souza. What is the plot? Do Shree, Aadi and Manav succeed? Does Maria get the Rs. 10 crore which rightfully belongs to her?
Paritosh Dipak Painter’s story is too simple to appeal to the audience. Even the comedy is good in parts only. His screenplay borders on the implausible but that doesn’t matter as it is a comedy. However, the implausible screenplay doesn’t work much because the entertainment and fun quotient is not consistent. There aren’t many scenes which are hilarious. Several scenes hardly evoke laughter although they are designed to do just that. Other than the comedy, which works to an extent only, the other parts of the drama fail to impress. Joy Fernandes’ dialogues are funny at times.
Siddharth Jadhav does a fine job as the blind Shree. However, the Hindi film audience may not fancy him as a hero. He is a big name in the world of Marathi cinema, but is not too well-known in the Hindi cinema world, and definitely not as a lead man. Paritosh Painter is quite alright as the deaf Adi. Jayesh Thakkar performs reasonably well as the mute Manav. Shweta Gulati is okay as Maria. Bharat Dabholkar lends decent support as Ganesh D’Souza. Tejaswini Lonari leaves a mark as police inspector Aaliya Sawant. Vijay Patkar (as police inspector Sawant) is so-so. Johny Lever is alright in a brief role as Nawab. Jesse Lever fails to have the desired impact as Nawab’s step-son, Aftab. Resham Tipnis is average as the passenger in the bus. Vishnu Mehra is passable as Nawab’s PA, Kulkarni. Others are okay.
Paritosh Painter’s direction is not up to the mark. He has been unable to make a laugh riot which is what the film ought to have been. Kashyap Sompura’s music leaves something to be desired. Lyrics (Alok Ranjan Jha, Prisha Mehta and Samit Kapoor) are just about alright. Ranju Varghese’s choreography is fair. Maliq Warsi’s background music ought to have been more effective. Suresh Deshmane’s cinematography is average. Nitin Borkar’s art direction is alright. Sarvesh Parab’s editing is quite sharp.
On the whole, The Defective Detectives is not as funny as a film of this kind should’ve been. Besides, it has a mix of Hindi and Marathi film actors, making the film look like a hotchpotch exercise. It will, therefore, go largely unnoticed. Aflatoon, the Marathi version of the same film, was released last year in Maharashtra and did not score well.
Released on 5-4-’24 at PVR Lower Parel (daily 1 show) and other cinemas of Bombay thru Cinepolis India. Publicity & opening: dull. …….Also released all over. Opening was weak everywhere.