Kaccha Limboo Review

Every generation deserves its own phrase-generating movie that is made keeping children in mind. Those which have stayed for long and will remain are Satyen Bose `Jagriti' (1954), Gulzar's `Kitaab' (1977) and Nagesh Kukunoor's `Rockford' (1999). Because they were made keeping children in mind and amazingly ended up with `for all ages' tag.

Sahara Motion Pictures, `Kaacha Limboo' is seen struggling in that area and to add more salt to it wounds it even struggles to find a proper genre to explain what it is a drama, teen comedy or coming of age..

This teenage emotional energy released by the battery of `Bheja fry' helmer Sagar Ballary is a stretched short film, probably too long for the sort of picture on big screen.

Following the subtle culture that we experienced in the comedy `Bheja Fry', `Kaacha Limboo'  begins with a simple sweet but laid back route and tells us a story of Shambhu (Taher Sutterwala) a 13 year old teenager caught in a transitional, adolescent phase.

Experiencing the typical teenage psyche at the age of 13 where you want to be big and gain attention, our protagonist Shambhu - very naturally performed by the first timer Taher ignores the love, care and concern of his pregnant mom effectively played by Sarika and understanding new father played nicely by Atul Kulkarni with ease.

Indeed the high school experience in the movie is a major plus especially the scenes with the gang where Shambhu wants himself to be included.

The attitudes shown and the lingo expressed in the dialogues are the same we see our younger friends in high school speaking with each other.

However the movie's most loving phase - the school times fail to cash on the establishment created by Sagar in the first half, in the second half Shambhu runs away from home due to his own mistakes done in school. Fine.

Shambu falters consistently and invariably finds himself to be all thumbs down at the most crucial moments.

Shambhu is a big cause of worry to his parents due to his constant goofy behavior. He has found himself in an unfortunate mess with a gang of boys where he has to pay 5000 otherwise his priced mobile from where he calls his sweetheart and the current hottie of the neighboring girls' school. All well till here. Agreed his running from home is justified.

Now the problem starts.

Shambu lands up in fisherman colony and bumps into vitthal (Shaheer Vitthal Umap) must say the boy is a bundle of talent and he gets real smart lines. But why he speaks so much in Konkani making it difficult for others to follow.

Shambu finds a stark contrast to the world he had left behind vaguely reminds us with the feelings of master Raju in Gulzar's Kitaab'. But here Sagar seems to be lost in the fisherman's colony enjoying the boat, the sea and the fish and the crabs of boredom starts biting as the writer director become stubborn to move.

You really want Shambu and Vitthal to show signs of growing up by doing something. Sagar ends the journey abruptly where in the end Shambu gets a bravery award which is not properly explained in the film. Vitthal is missing.

The hallmark of Sagar's previous success `Bheja Fry' was its direct note and role, it did shout theatre but still ruled due to the characters got stock situations to endowed themselves with extra dimensions of humanity, weakness and insecurity.

`Kaacha Limboo' is not comic but it does not satisfy the viewer as a drama either.

Its high school moments are notable along with performances and technical quality which is fine but not strong enough to develop a positive word of mouth to attract legs at theaters.

Post theatre prospects seem to be safe for this low budget film, after the welcome sweet little surprise called `Bheja Fry', Sagar will have to come up with some `pucca limboo' next time.

Rating **