Rating: 0.5/5

Cast: Mallika Sherawat, Paresh Rawal, Rahul Bose, Kay Kay Menon

Director: Sanjay Chhel

MGMEA is the story of a theatre drama group comprising of Uday Shankar Majumdar (Paresh Rawal), Shabnam Majumdar (Mallika Sherawat) and a handful of other side artists whose names you don’t hear throughout the film. Uday Shankar is constantly worried that his hot and sexy wife Shabnam is having an affair with all the actors in his troupe. Set to perform a play on the existence of the underworld in their city, their theatre company is threatened by the cops and mafia who work hand in hand. So what happens next?

And if you expect that they stand up and fight then you are mistaken. Since the script is burnt they decide to do their standard hit play MGMEA. (My first question arises right here – don’t directors have multiple copies of their scripts? But then considering how this film moves ahead I think somewhere along the way Chhel’s script also got burnt and he didn’t have another copy.) So coming back to the film – Mallika arrives on stage as Anarkali only to make doe eyes at a handsome man sitting in the first row who has been coming to see her every day. He then walks up to her make up room where she sends him a message to come back later when her husband Uday Shankar will be saying a five minutes dialogue. And so he promptly returns then and that’s when an affair between Arjun (Rahul Bose) and Shabnam begins.

Now while all of this is happening, Arjun conveniently overhears a conversation between a local bhai and the big don in Dubai about a blast he has planned in the city. And mind you this call is being made through a public booth with the door open. So then begins a pursuit of this bhai by Arjun who is later disclosed as an undercover cop. But now that his face is out in public, the task force needs a new recruit to wrap up the operation. That’s where in walks Haldi Hasan (Kay Kay Menon) – part time ghazal singer, part time cop. However, in just their first meeting Arjun discovers that Haldi is a double agent i.e. he doesn’t really work for the Indian government but for the Dubai based don. And that’s when Arjun enlists Shabnam and Uday Shankar Majumdar to help save the city from the underworld and their plans to have bomb blasts in the city.


Now if you are still here reading this review and want to know whether you should go to the cinema this weekend – that’s if the story above isn’t enough of a reason not to then let me tell you about the acting.

Rahul Bose needs to come out of his retirement from international rugby and start playing again. This way he can quit acting. Paresh Rawal thoroughly disappoints. Not due to his acting but with his decision to even be a part of this film. I really want to know what compelled him to say yes.

And what about Mallika Sherawat, you ask? Before I can ask that I want to know whether Mallika is serious about being a quality actress. She already has the body and knows how to groom herself and with the right roles she can go places. So therefore it baffles me why she thinks she needs to be falling out of her clothes from all corners every time she hits the big screen. In MGMEA, Mallika goes beyond what she has done ever before. While I am no prude, I would like to believe that Bollywood has gone beyond actresses being clothes’ horses. But in Mallika’s case it’s different. Here there are no clothes. And to make things worse they dropping of clothes don’t even help you get through the scenes. So what makes her say yes to such senseless and down right trailer trash films is beyond comprehension.

Director Sanjay Chhel…, the less said about him for this film the better. He needs and I take a quote from his leading lady’s recent release 99 slaps without the 1 kiss.

Chhel has made an attempt (and I stress on the attempt!) to make a comedy but what he has turned out is a film that doesn’t border on but is complete trash.