‘Welcome to Sajjanpur’ is directed by Shyam Benegal, one of the most reputed directors of our country.That must have been the reason he got such an ensemble cast for the film and that was also why I wanted to watch the movie.
Sadly,the movie doesn’t live upto the reputation or the body of work of Shyam Benegal.
Talking about the flaws of the movie will take really long,because even the first shot seems to be stretched beyond comfort, and the rest of the movie lives upto the 1st shot.
Shreyas Talpade plays Mahadev, a letter-writer.His work involves writing letters for the people in Sajjanpur.He is good with words and gets emotionally attached to the letters he is writing.This leads to him getting into various situations and meeting different people.What could have been an entertaining film sadly turns out to be a treacherously long story that makes you wait for the climax, but just so that you could rush home.
There are too many characters, too many sub-plots, too many cliches that it would be futile to get into them in detail.Amrita Rao plays a married potter whose husband is away.Ravi Kisen plays a compounder hitting on a widow.Yashpal Sharma plays a notorious local politician.
The characters are cliches and Benegal takes a lot of time establishing them.The screenplay drags on for eternity and the music is not pleasant to the ear.In short, the film fails on all fronts.
I cannot say much of the cast.Its a Shreyas Talpade show all the way. He succeeds in inducing whatever little interest you have in the movie. Amrita Rao is unsure, Divya Dutta has exactly one expression through the movie.Ravi Kisen overacts and Yashpal Sharma seems bored with the character he is playing.
‘Welcome to Sajjanpur’ will rank as probably the worst of Shyam Benegal’s works.If you miss it, you aren’t missing much.
Heartranjan's Blog 