You’re having an image of America-returned NRI, so everybody will think of you as a well-established millionaire kind of guy, but is that the truth, and that too during the recession times, NO WAY! - This is the central plot around which this satirical movie "Phas Gaye re Obama" revolves round. Directed by a new director Subhash Kapoor, and produced by Ashok Pandey, this is one of the movie which stands out of the lot which day-by-day Bollywood is producing.
Plot comprises of a bechara businessman Om Shastri (Rajat Kapoor) who got a notice of $100000 from bank or else he will lose his house, so he decided to come back to India to sell his only Haweli, and getting that amount to pay his debt. But its the recession time, everybody is suffering and so are the 4 gangs, out of which the smallest one, gang of Bhaisaab (Sanjay Mishra, just chill) kidnapped him, and so on they exchanged this so-called bada aasami to the bigger gang, and Om gets 50% of exchanged amount for this. Bhaisaab hand Om to Ali’s (Sumit Nijhavan) gang for Rs.30000, Ali in-turn hand over him to Munni (Neha Dhupia) for Rs.60000, and Munni hand him to the goon-turned-politician cum Pashu Mantri Dhananjaya Singh (Amol Gupte, Kaminey’s villian), but in the end Om again plays his mind and get out of this Indian mess.
Now let us talk about the movie’s treatment, it is the perfect satirical picturisation of the recession period, where one of the character tell the source of this so called mandi "This disease started from US, and then they sent it to whole world through airplanes". Conceptual, yet different in its own way, and you’ll not find too many movies different, since it includes a well-crafted script. Wonderful plot by Subhash Kapoor. Next best asset of this movie is Manu Rishi, as Anni. What a role he played of an average Indian guy, who can’t speak english properly, but has a dream to do big in America (Well, Tere Bin Laden’s main character too have the same ambition!). Rajat Kapoor and Sanjay Mishra did their role well, alongwith Amol Gupte, Neha Dhupia and Sumit. But! some loopholes are certainly there. This movie is not as tight as ’Tere Bin Laden’. TBL has satire, spoof, comedy, timing, and a fast pace, but PGRO lacks on that front. 1st half is very boring, no background score, and at interval I even thinking of not recommending this movie to watch in theatres. Editing (Sandeep Singh Bajeli) is not upto the mark for sure, they should either decrease the length of the movie or should put message with comic timings. Yes, the boringness depicted the recession, but it makes a viewer bore and when they get bored, they will certainly miss the message! TBL was much smarter than PGRO on this front. Some vulgar dialogues (Subhash Kapoor) have been put to Munni’s mouths, which I think was not required, but they were used to have something for the masala viewers. Sets (Art Director - Gautam Sen) were real, and nicely used. Some scenes are worth mentioning -
The english coaching class where the english teacher speaks funny english (he also don’t know english)
The kidnapping department of Dhananjaya singh, the pashu mantri which have a ransom department, accounts department, and delievery department, where after getting the victim, the person even gets a receipt with 1-year guarantee of non-kidnapping.
Now, I must say, PGRO is a well-crafted and well-written plot, but its execution can be made more interesting. But it certainly deserves a one-time watch, so for me it is rated as 3/5.
GRuchirG.