[Movie Review] Matru Ki Bijli Ka Mandola- Welcome to the MadVille!

Cast: Imran Khan, Anushka Sharma, Pankaj Kapoor, Shabana Azmi, Aryan Babbar.
Director: Vishal Bhardwaj
Genre: Comedy, Drama

Reviewed at PVR, Udaipur.

A tanked-up industrialist, a lassie with a Meena Kumari complex, a Haryanvi Jat and a pink glowing buffalo; Matru Ki Bijli Ka Mandola is an eccentric bag of moments that contains the magnetism of Vishal Bhardwaj’s thump, but is shipwrecked by a muddled and disarrayed script. But Vishal’s fans shall not fear as all is not lost in the smog of the story. The witty director chirps in Mao along with the Lady Macbeth tragedy and Che Guevara’s artworks across the walls to symbolize revolution and a sense of cine-making that very few directors possess.


Harry Mandola (Pankaj Kapoor), an ambitious entrepreneur and a heavily bearded landlord, struggling from a dual-personality disorder and a hilariously unknown disease whose name one would have never heard before (Not for you, docs!), wraps his mind to marry his daughter, Bijli (Anushka Sharma) to Baadal (Arya Babbar); the only son of Chaudhari Devi (Shabana Azmi), the gluttonous neta.

Plunging deep into the plot reveals that this whole marriage is a hush-hush deal to take the lands away from the farmers and to shape a monstrous devil (Read industrial units and malls!), all in the name of pragati!  Meanwhile, Matru (Imran Khan) is a Haryanvi missile and the driver of Mandola with his own sense of righteousness and his heart on his sleeves.

Lavishing in gimmicks, first hour has its laughs. But the point is that everything; from the abundantly knotted buffaloes to the lazy green pastures and those murky daaru ke theke; feels completely aimless. The second hour tries to balance whippy Shakespearean humor with the depressions of modern India; and the result is, well, some brilliant moments and some ‘etched-to-eternity’ sort of sequences. The climax tries to shake the rubble, but Alas! The weight of the second hour was too heavy to wear off by a single song.

Pankaj Kapoor pulls off an absolute stunner with a man having two-hearts, one having holier-than-thou emotions (comes out during his routine drinking spells) and second one blinded with greed and lust for power. Anushka Sharma pitches in an electrifying performance as Bijli and Shabana Azmi makes for a perfect baddy. What surprises is Imran Khan, who looked out-of-places initially but grows on you with his bindaas dialogue delivery and quirkiness.

Apart from the cast and the nasty eye of direction, it is the tongue-in-cheek one liners of MKBKMD penned by Vishal himself that can plaster a huge grin on your face. Don’t believe me, read for yourself: ‘Agar dil saand ho to har ladki bhains dikhai deti hai meri jaan!’ Trust them to bombard the screen and tickle your insides as soon as a character shoots one!

To sum it up, Matru Ki Bijli Ka Mandola is a madhouse mixture of bizarreness and finesse. If you are one big fan of Vishal Bhardwaj’s craftsmanship, you probably shouldn’t give it a miss. For the rest of you, even if you loathe it, you have the pink buffaloes to save your day!

Rating: 2.5/5


(first published in www.udaipurtimes.com)