This review is based on the Tamil version of Mumbai Xpress (MX)
It is very difficult to tell the story of MX without giving away the plots and sequences but I will try! :-)
Story:
The movie is set in the slums of Dharavi in Mumbai. Three people code named A (Pasupathi), B (Vaiyapuri), and C (???) plan to kidnap a rich chettiar’s (Santhana Bharathi) son for ransom. But, the plan is jinxed from the word go! C develops appendicitis pain and gets admitted in hospital. C suggests A & B to recruit his brother in law Kamal hassan (Avinasi a.k.a Mumbai Xpress) who is a biker in a circus, to get the job done.
MX joins because of his sister’s (Kovai Sarala) emotional blackmail. Also, an unexpected accident results in the uninvited insoorance agent (Ramesh Arvind) joining as the 4th partner. But, the plan goes wrong and they end up kidnapping the wrong boy. This boy turns out to be the illegitimate son of the ACP (Nasser) and Ahalya (Manisha). When the kidnappers find out they plan to kill the boy but MX has a change of heart and he decides to return the Boy to his family and the ransom money back to the Chettiar (paid by the chettiar because his son is also missing for a while .. watch the movie to enjoy the sequences).
What happens from here is a cat and mouse game between the ACP, Chettiar, MX, the boy and his mother, and the Kidnappers that causes chaos and confusion. This forms the rest of the story.
Question: What happens when the hero is deaf, the heroine is greedy, the ACP has a illegitimate child that he wants to hide, the ACP’s legitimate daughter is getting married, the Chettiar pays ransom for some other child, an uninvited ’’insoorance’’ agent, a horse named Baazigar that bites everyone, car chases, accidents, confusion, kidnapping, ransom and when MX is confused with Mumbai Express (the train)... all this happens together???
Answer: You get a crazy mix of slapstick, intelligent, dialogue based, situational comedy of errors.
Summary:
MX is 2.5 hours of hilarious laugh riot with full family entertainment! Leave your analytical and logical reasoning skills at home and watch this movie to enjoy it completely. This is a typical Kamal comedy with lot of confusions (for the characters in screen) and skillful word-play and mis-understandings.
The Cast:
Excellent job by everyone. Pasupathi as A is great with his frustrated expressions. Very good make up for Ramesh Arvind. Nasser, Santhana Bharathi, Manisha, the Kid, Vaiyapuri all played their parts well.
Kamal blends into the role of Avinasi/MX easily and gives another good comic show.
My 2 cents!:
What make the movie so funny are the Dialogues, Screenplay and very good direction
The ending of the movie is somewhat abrupt. It would have been better if they could have added a small 2 minute scene to transition the movie to its ending. Anyway, it is a comedy so no big deal!
I have not seen the Hindi version of the movie but I have a feeling that the Tamil version will be better. The taste of Hindi audience and the brand of humor they enjoy is somewhat different. So, it will be interesting to see how the movie is accepted North. The last good Hindi Comedy that I saw was Hera Pheri
The special effects are horrible and unnecessary.
Kamal has a winner with MX. It is has all the ingredients to be a super hit in Tamil. Among Chandramukhi, Sachin and MX, my bet is on MX
5 *s for all good laughs and making me see it again :-)