MUNNA MICHAEL - A poor mishmash of nostalgia and reality shows wasting a fine opportunity. (Review by Bobby Sing)

Exploring a novel idea of a young expert dancer teaching dance steps to a funny gangster definitely had an appeal and the trailer further raised the expectations with the fresh Tiger-Nawazuddin combo. It looked like the project had every essential ingredient for making a great entertaining flick and the viewers were all set to welcome it in a highly positive mood in comparison to the other releases. 

Unfortunately the result remains the same yet again coming as a big disappointment, since the film happens to be not even close to what it looked like in the promising promos.

 

To be fair with the project, MUNNA MICHAEL begins at an impressive as well as nostalgic note reminding you of those typical Hindi films of the 80s where an ageing artist finds an abandoned child lying in front of a temple or in a dustbin, who later turns into a young, trained dancer/singer in the next few scenes. With some highly clichéd sequences of dance competition and usual fights introducing Tiger Shroff, the film soon comes to the point bringing in Nawazuddin Siddiqui and you have a good time watching them together for almost 40 minutes.

 

However the moment a girl (Nidhi Agerwal) gets introduced, the whole interesting build-up crumbles making way for the routine old plot of a love triangle wherein a gangster loves the same girl as our hero does. And from onwards, the film simply becomes a big bore offering everything predictable, forced and monotonous along with the typical Sabir Khan insertions throwing logic for a toss (especially in the sequences dealing with the dance reality shows towards the climax). So where the first half largely remains bearable with a few entertaining moments, the second half is too bland to be tolerated giving you a real tough time.

 

In straight words, the fights and dance sequences are the only watchable moments in this poor film, but those too are all forced into the narration right till the pathetic finale. Just a few films old Tiger chooses to put an arrogant attitude in his performance and even his dance steps look like more worried about the technique and craft, instead of the joy and fun in the art missing that magnetic pull. Sad to see Nawazuddin foolishly wasted as a typical don post the initial part of the movie (wherein he is too good). Nidhi Agerwal doesn’t get anything significant to showcase apart from looking good and singing songs along Tiger. And the same can be said about Pankaj Tripathi too, spiritedly agreeing to do this comic film post some powerful and highly appreciated performances. Strangely the cameos as the reality show judges don’t even get a proper attention of the camera but Ronit Roy makes his presence felt, particularly in the film’s opening sequence. 
 

Having a title inspired by the immortal Michael Jackson, the project certainly deserved a much better, foot-tapping soundtrack than the present one. A couple of songs do sound like above average as you get to hear them for the first time, but they largely remain unable to contribute anything into the proceedings.
 

Overall, MUNNA MICHAEL can easily be called a foolishly missed opportunity that could have been a thoroughly entertaining fair focusing on Nawazuddin alone. In the present form, it frankly deserves to be saved for a channel viewing soon to be there in the coming months.

Yet again exploring the same old plot of a love triangle involving a gangster, MUNNA MICHAEL actually had a novel element of ‘Dance classes to the Don” that could have been its major highlight taking care of the entertainment factor. But quite strangely the director begins with the same and then finishes it off in the first 40 minutes itself moving on to all clichéd insertions simply forgetting about the ‘Dance and Don angle’ resulting in a poor product.

 

A similar triangle was also there in Shahid Kapur’s R… RAJKUMAR (2013) but perhaps we will never stop making films on the ages old repetitive plots. As a matter of fact, this certainly is an amazing industry, where neither they respect, pay or give deserving chances to new talented writers nor stop making films on the same old rotten plots. 

 

So just give it a skip and catch it soon in a few weeks on an online portal.