Eros International, Trinity Pictures and Amol Gupte Cinema Pvt. Ltd.’s Sniff!!! is a children’s film about a little boy whose sense of smell is so powerful that he uses it to nab car thieves and thereby becomes a hero.
Sunny Gill (Khushmeet Gill) is a little boy who lives with his father (Manmeet Singh), grandmother (Surekha Sikri) and elder sister, Bobby (Monica Sehgal). Sunny’s olfactory nerve is non-functional and so, he can’t smell anything. The doctors are unable to cure him. But one day, his blocked nose opens up after he sneezes. With this, not only does he get the power to smell but he can sniff things from two kilometres far.
Using this super-powerful sense of smell, Sunny exposes a gang of car thieves and unearths their racket when a car, belonging to Mr. Kumar (Rajesh Puri), living in his housing society, is stolen. But Mr. Kumar’s car is still untraceable. Sunny is convinced that the car thief is Ricky (Rachit Trehan), boyfriend of his sister, Bobby. Then, one day, Sunny nabs a resident of his very own society trying to steal another car from the compound. This leads him to the entire story behind the missing car of Mr. Kumar.
Who is the car thief? Does Mr. Kumar get back his car?
Amole Gupte has written a story for children (from the original concept of Radhika Anand) and it is interesting in parts. His screenplay is quite nice but has its limitations as it targets only the kid audience. Since the story revolves around one housing society only, the audience does not get the satisfaction of having watched a macro problem being solved. No doubt, the result of Sunny’s investigation is the unearthing of a car theft scam but the drama mostly concentrates on the problems of the members of the housing society only. Some scenes, like the housing society general meeting, are entertaining. But some scenes, like the installation of CCTV camera by kids, look far-fetched. The climax is comparatively tame; it should’ve left the kids with a moral to take home, which it doesn’t. Rather, it condones anger and revenge. The weakest part of the script is that it neither makes the viewers laugh nor does it give them any kind of high. Amole Gupte’s dialogues are nice.
Khushmeet Gill acts fairly well as Sunny Gill. Surekha Sikri is good. Sushmita Mukherjee leaves a mark as ACP Bashvati Mukherji. Putul Guha performs very well as Sopan Mukherji. Maahi Zaveri is natural as Jiyaa. Parshva Dhariwal is good in the role of Jaanu. Adil Majoo shines as Adil. Rajesh Puri has his moments as Mr. Kumar. Manmeet Singh does well as Sunny’s father. Vijay Nikam (as Senior Koli) and Nilesh Divekar (as Pakya Koli) are fantastic. Amole Gupte is nice. Monica Sehgal (as Bobby), Rachit Trehan (as Ricky), Suresh Menon (as PT teacher Verghese), Vijay Patkar (as the peon), Ankur Vikal (as the head of the car-stealing racket) and Gopal Singh (as the car thief) are adequate.
Amole Gupte’s direction is effective but his script is found lacking. Music (Mujtaba Aziz Naza) is okay. Amole Gupte’s lyrics are appropriate. Simaab Sen’s background music is nice. Manush Nandan does a fine job of the cinematography. Sham Kaushal’s stunts are realistic. Production designing (by Amit Ray and Subrata Chakraborty) is alright. Parikshit Jha’s editing (consulting editor: Deepa Bhatia) is crisp.
On the whole, Sniff!!! is an average entertainer for kids but its box-office prospects seem to be very limited because of the release of so many other (and bigger) films this week and also because it does not give the audience much of a high. It will, therefore, face an uphill task at the turnstiles.