This movie can be evaluated from two stands..one, if you havent watched malayalam movies and one, if you have.If you have watched malayalam movies, then well its nothing new..Every single scene reminds you of some movie by some director.Priyadarshan has always redefined the term ’originality’ like maybe even an Anu Malik hasnt. His talent solely lies in suitably realigning foreign/regional movies to suit the north indian palate.I think the last original movie was ’Kaalapaani’ which showed glimpses of what the director could do if he actually spent a minute on thinking about the story.Priyan always falls back on formula-if you have noticed-song, dance, slapstick, good actors, model turned actresses who cant act...all too familiar.Maalamaal Weekly is not very different from his usual fare.
If you havent watched Malayalam movies, then probably you would fall off your seats in peals of laughter.So the comedy is slapstick but so was Chaplin-Priyan’s greatest inspiration.Maalamaal weekly, Priyan’s first ’original’ movie is sadly a let down..especially when u see that it is directly lifted from an Irish movie..aah so quintessentially Priyan.But it is definitely better than ’kyon ki’ and ’garam masala’.Those were embarassingly bad.
The movie revolves around Lilaram(paresh rawal), the only man who has any kind of formal college education in the village of Lahouli.He is a simpleton, a lottery ticket vendor. Trouble starts one day when he realises that someone who bought a ticket from him has got a lottery of 1 crore. Now follows a huge comedy of errors.He organises a party-to enter you need to show the ticket you have purchases-complete with tasteless rakhi sawant’s item number.But the real winner Anthony does not come to the party because, as Lilaram realises, he has died in the shock of victory.lilaram tries to keep all the money to himself but soon Ballu(superb Om Puri) finds out and he has to be given a cut.Ballu’s man friday also hears about the windfall and agrees to keep quiet if he can marry Ballu’s daughter Sukhmani(the lesser said about this actress the better)Word gets around and soon the loot is shared by almost the entire village. But there are twists and turns in the story. Thakurani and her brother-Baaje will not have the villagers get richer than her.THe entire village is indebted to her.Baaje wants to marry Sukhmani.The ending is of course not going to be discussed here..i dont want to take away anything from the experience.
The second half of the movie drags on a bit. Screenplay has more holes than the ozone layer. The saving grace of the movie is some fabulous performances by Paresh Rawal and Om Puri.They were an absolute delight to watch.Also Rajpal Yadav as Baaje and Sudha Chandran as the Thakurani. even Arbaaz Khan as the dust alergic lottery inspector was surprisingly good. Riteish Deshmukh is slowly emerging as a one of the best actors we have-but I think this was not as great as his performance in bluff master.All in all I think the movie is good if you love Chaplinesque comedy, you havent watchd Malayalam movies, and you want to watch some great actors come together to give some wonderful perfomances..Now the only thing missing is the originality and the story.