Genre: Satire
Director: Chandraprakash Dwivedi
Cast: Adil Hussain, Mona Singh, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Mukesh Tiwari
Cut from the same cloth from which films like Well Done Abba and Welcome To Sajjanpur were stitched, Zed Plus warms the cockles of the heart with its simplicity and integrity, ingredients that are fast disappearing from our cinescape. Far from the gloss and fakery of larger-than-life stories which rely on flying kicks and superheroes living next door, director Chandraprakash Diwvedi creates a scenario rooted in socio-political reality and gives it a satirical treatment.
It makes a scathing statement on how our politicians are cut off from the ground realities, when the prime minister (Kulbhushan Kharbanda), grappling with the numbers game of coalition politics, inadvertently gifts Aslam (Adil Hussain) — an auto mechanic in Fatehpur town of Rajasthan — Z category security. How it changes Aslam’s life and gradually corrupts it forms the rest of the story.
The best part is how Dwivedi deals with different hues of corruption and doesn’t keep the common man out of its hook, for the first thing that gets affected by the security is Aslam’s extramarital activity. Similarly, the way Dwivedi brings out the interplay between the greed for material needs and the conscience of the common man is engaging and uplifting. There is an inherent sweetness to storytelling like we are watching a contemporary folktale on screen, where even evil has a soft side and the good is not aspiring for greatness. The dialogues are conversational and belong to the characters.
Co-written by Dwivedi and Ram Kumar Singh, the problem is the treatment doesn’t match the potency of writing consistently, particularly when it comes to the crucial plot point on which the entire narrative hangs. It is possible that a prime minister doesn’t understand the grassroots reality but Kulbhushan Kharbanda doesn’t come across as the prime minister who doesn’t understand Hindi, and Aslam’s Hindustani is easy to comprehend. The disclaimer says that such a thing can’t happen in our democracy. You can’t agree more.
The confusion that ensues appears made up despite Adil Hussain and Mona Singh remaining true to the characters. Also, the film has come up at a time when coalition politics is on its way out and the current prime minister is well-versed in Hindi, making the subject a little dated. The entry of Sanjay Mishra as the leader of an out-of-work terror group reminds us of the character he played in Phans Gaye Re Obama and lacks novelty. So does the predictable usage of mediapersons..
Some transparency is lost in visual translation for the script has elements like Kashmir and communal tension to fill the gaps, but somehow the fissures remain, cloud the mind and ultimately annoy one. In fact, when Sukhwinder Singh sings “Fislan Hai Fislan Hai” (It’s slippery ahead), it seems he is unintentionally reminding Dwivedi of the slope ahead!
Bottomline: A well-meaning, wellacted satire that is let down by uneven treatment.
