'Rama Rama...' putrid tripe masquerading as comedy (Film Review)

Film: 'Rama Rama Kya Hai Drama'; Cast: Rajpal Yadav, Neha Dhupia, Ashish Chowdhary, Amrita Arora, Rati Agnihotri, Anupam Kher, Sanjay Mishra; Director: S. Chandrakaant; Rating: *

You know that feeling you get while undergoing molar surgery or when you have a head on collision with another vehicle while driving down a dark road? You get the same dreaded feeling of disgusted disbelief while seeing 'Rama Rama Kya Hai Drama'.

This movie is a piece of putrid tripe masquerading as mirth and camouflaged as comedy. At the end of this dreadfully droll drama, you look around and ask: 'Why me?'

'Rama Rama Kya Hai Drama' could be a contender for the trophy of the worst comedy ever made in India. The lines that the two couples, Rajpal Yadav-Neha Dhupia and Ashish Chowdhary-Amrita Arora, throw at one another make you question the institution of marriage.

The plot is intensely anti-marriage. Perhaps the director or writer doesn't believe in it, but does he believe in cinema? The awry proceedings try hard to convince us that there are no rules governing the genre of comedy. Sure, but show us at least one genuine moment of humour in this homage to bilge.

Rajpal plays a man who is acutely unhappy with his wife and runs around on a fantasy binge, imagining other people's wives and girlfriends to be his own. Ashish, poor guy, looks constipated while Amrita Arora, who plays a hi-fi harridan, shrieks at him for imagined trespasses.

All this helter-skelter chaos of comedy would have been mildly amusing if the director had cared to even borrow a chapter or two from the protocol of comedy.

Director Chandrakant seems inspired by B.R. Chopra's 'Pati Patni Aur Woh'. We even get a reference to that lovable and naughty comedy, slipped into the domain of Rajpal's domesticity on a television screen.

Regrettably, the director has neither the sense nor the sensitivity to bring that sparkle which makes a sex comedy a beehive of chortles.

The buzz, if any, is in the screenwriter's head as he puts together episodes from badly written stand-up comic acts on marriage.

While Rajpal's habitual hilarity fails to carry the show, a talented actor like Anupam Kher is reduced to a parodic prop in this ode to amused anarchy as seen through the eyes of a director who has probably never known the difference between gags and genuine comedy.

Technically as shoddy as it gets, the camerawork and the sets remind us of a washed-out village that has been plundered by a particularly uncontrollable wild bull. Overall, the movie is a big bore.