Prakash Jha Productions Pvt. Ltd.’s Crazy Cukkad Family (UA) is the story of a dysfunctional family. Pawan Beri (Swanand Kirkire), Archana (Shilpa Shukla), Aman (Kushal Punjabi) and Abhay (Siddharth Sharma) are siblings who’ve been informed that their father (Yusuf Hussain) has slipped into a coma and is in hospital. Since they don’t live with their parents, they all come there. Of course, they are not really bothered about their father’s well-being as they are actually waiting for him to breathe his last. All the four want the maximum share in the wealth and property of their father and are, therefore, dying to know what he has left for whom in the will. However, lawyer Gupta (Utkarsh Majumdar) virtually drops a bomb on the siblings when he reveals that, according to Mr. Beri, the contents of the will should be made known to them only after all the four are married. Since Abhay is yet unmarried, the other three siblings hurriedly try to fix his wedding with a girl (Jugnu Ishqi) living close by. Abhay, who is the last to arrive, is against the marriage for his own reasons but his two brothers and his sister are in no mood to listen.
The father had his own reasons to be displeased with each of his four children and that’s one big reason why each of them is fearful that the others might get more share in the property.
The comedy, which is created because of the hurry in which the siblings are, to know the contents of the will and to hear the news of their father’s demise is what the film is all about.
Finally, do the siblings get to know about the contents of the will? Whom has Mr. Beri willed the property and his assets to and in what proportion? Why does Abhay not want to get married? Does he ultimately marry the girl his siblings have chosen for him? Is Aman married to the girl, Amy (Nora Fatehi), he has arrived with? If so, why does someone come and claim that Amy is not Aman’s wife? What is the stand taken by Mrs. Beri? Do the siblings get lucky this time or does their father come out of the coma?
Suhaas Shetty and Kushal Punjabi have written a story which starts on a promising note but soon becomes repetitive as it is thin and uni-dimensional for all practical purposes. Of course, there are individual sub-plots of each of the four siblings but they don’t interest the viewers if only because the audience gets the feeling that every problem in each of the sub-plots would be solved without too much of a hassle. Suhaas Shetty and Ritesh Menon’s screenplay, like the story, loses steam after the first half. Even the comic element declines as the drama degenerates into routineness. The change of heart, which takes place towards the end, is quite abrupt and also quite inexplicable. Resultantly, the climax fails to have the desired impact. Puneet Sharma and Suhaas Shetty’s dialogues are very good and are actually better than the story and screenplay.
Swanand Kirkire acts ably and does justice to his role. He has a good sense of comic timing. Shilpa Shukla is splendid and raises laughter with her free acting and faulty English. Kushal Punjabi does a fairly nice job. Siddharth Sharma makes a reasonably good debut. Ninad Kamat leaves a lovely mark as Archana’s henpecked husband. Kanika Kalra is natural to the core as Pawan’s wife. Nora Fatehi makes her presence suitably felt. Pravina Bhagwat Deshpande is okay as the mother. Yusuf Hussain has his moments as Mr. Beri. Utkarsh Majumdar’s poker-faced comedy in the role of lawyer Gupta is effective at places. Kiran Karmarkar acts ably as Om Shastri. Bhupesh Singh is nice as servant Manohar. Jugnu Ishqi (as the girl with whom Abhay’s marriage is finalised) and Krishna Bansal (as her father) lend good support. Manish Dewani is expressive as Abhay’s friend. Master Vikrant Soni and baby Anushka Sen lend decent support.
Ritesh Menon’s direction is good for a maiden attempt. He knows the craft of direction and has been able to extract good work from out of his ensemble cast. Sidhartha-Suhaas’ music is quite alright but the songs aren’t too popular. The absence of hit numbers is sorely felt. Kumaar’s lyrics are appropriate. Aditya Bedekar’s background music is nice. Sojan Narayanan’s photography is alright. Boishali Sinha’s sets are okay. Shakti Hasija’s editing is quite sharp.
On the whole, Crazy Cukkad Family is entertaining, no doubt, but at the end of the day, it appears like a nice television serial. Lack of face value and the poor opening will do the film in. Its commercial prospects are very dull.