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Don Muthuswami

Movie Don Muthuswami Director Ashim Samanta Cast Mithun Chakraborty, Hrishita Bhatt, Shakti Kapoor, Rohit Roy

Sonia Chopra

What’s so funny about a South Indian don who decides to kick the profession for the more sober suited-booted one? Nothing, as is apparent in Don Muthuswami. The treatment of the film takes you back a couple of decades. Shakti Kapoor hangs around doing his usual thing and a husky ‘hooey ye ye ye ye’ is heard when the camera pans to the skimpily clad heroine telling us how sexy she is. In this case, Hrishita Bhatt by the pool is yawn inducing, but her screech-filled acting is sure to rudely awake you out of your slumber. She plays Don Muthuswami’s (Mithun Chakraborty) daughter Sanjana, an annoying sort you just don’t care for. The Don wants her to marry Pradhan, the son of a successful gangster, but she’ll have none of it. To escape the wedding, she declares that she’s pregnant with their former driver Rehman’s baby. Meanwhile Rohit Roy (in a polka dotted shirt under a black and white suit), the Don’s corrupt manager claims to love Sanjana. Enter an oily-haired Jaikishen, who’s there to teach the transformed Don some chaste Urdu (leading to innumerable jokes about tashreef rakhiye and the meaning of tashreef), but also develops a crush on her. The dialogue is bizarre and utterly unfunny. A boring gag is often accompanied by the sound of a fart for added effect. The standard gay sniggers come in the form of two effeminate stylists in baby pink suits. There is no such thing as editing, as scenes go on and on and on with repetitive dialogues where jokes are milked beyond tolerance limits. One scene has the Don ask his assistant to lay out all his weapons on the table—after surrendering the initial one, the assistant proceeds to dig into every bit of clothing to produce yet another hidden one, and another and another. What was the point? You’ve no idea. Your mind has wandered to the conversation between the other two people in the theatre, whose discussions seem infinitely more interesting. The less said about the technical aspect the better. The interpretation of a South Indian is typical as that of an over-the top gent in a lungi far above the knees, who mixes up genders in Hindi, has idli-sambar-chutney for breakfast, and exclaims aiyo Muruga at the slightest provocation. Mithun’s performance is too laboured for it to be enjoyable. The jokes are too easy to elicit any response. One example—“Where does the driver Rehman live?” “In his house,” comes the reply. I honestly don’t know who would laugh at that.