Picture copyrighted to Revel Films[/caption]It was by sheer accident that I came across this movie when the other day while surfing through youtube for a particular Kishore Kumar song, this movie's video came to my notice. And for some reason I felt an urge to watch this movie even though I had never heard anything about this movie ever before and so I knew beforehand that I could end up rueing my choice. But by the time the movie ended, I wasn't really sad about my decision. Because Saare Jahan Se Mehenga is a charming, honest attempt by a rookie director and the earnest performances of the talented star cast quite made up for the lapses. It's definitely a one time watch movie, atleast for the honest performances and a commendable setting.
At a time when inflation is constantly on the rise and thus in the face of continually galloping prices of most essential household items like groceries and vegetables, Saare Jahaan Se Mehenga comes up with a whacky idea to tackle the issue. Though the idea shown in the movie is no doubt an utterly ridiculous one but I liked the sincerirty with which the film makers and the actors put in their efforts to show how a common man's life is getting affected by the continuous price rise and how inflation continues to wreak havoc on the household budget of a middle class family. So often a middle class family is forced to make compromises with their choices when wishing to buy something.
The movie is set in a small town in Haryana where a lower middle class man Puttan (played by Sanjay Mishra) with not much income from his government veterinary service is saddled by the constant price rise and the increasing demands of his family members. Though his wife too runs a beauty parlour from their house to augment the family income but they still often fall short and so are forced to make compromises. That's when Puttan is advised by one of his office colleagues to apply for a government scheme loan in his younger brother's name for starting a business but instead use the money to buy and stock up on groceries and home supplies for three years, because the loan came at a zero percent interest. Initially his family members laugh at the idea but when Puttan tres again, they agree and so they make a long list of all essential things of their choices that they felt they would need in those three years and buy them to stock them up at their home. But little did they know that the loan inspector would come to their place to inspect how they were utilising the loan amount. Thus what follows is a sequence of some funny and bizarre situations.
As far as acting is concerned, the two veteran actors Sanjay Mishra as the middle-aged man struggling to provide his family with their essential necessities and Zakir Hussain as the loan inspector stand out with their performance. It is because of these two men in particular that the movie looks good. The movie does have some funny moments but there are also some yawn inducing scenes. If only the makers had paid some attention to logic (for example every product comes with an expiry date and so how would the things that they had bought from the loan amount have lasted three years? Though the intention was honest but somewhere due to the lack of logic, the story and the movie went astray. Nevertheless it can still be watched as a satire on the price rise.
