Kaccha Limboo

Cast: Atul Kulkarni, Sarika, Vinay Pathak, Sarika, Rukhsar, Chinmay Kambli, Arman Malik, Rajesh Khattar

Director: Sagar Ballary

Sagar Ballary wanted to make a kids film with Kaccha Limboo. And he almost did. The first half of this film is adorable and takes you right back into your school days, be it remarks on your calendar or assembly halls or fights with classmates. But oh, what a tragedy he creates out of the second half almost killing the film and everything beautiful he had managed to develop with it! Ballary's intention was to bridge the gap between children and adults. That's what he had said during the promotions of the film. But he clearly tried too hard to keep up on the thought as he introduced unnecessary complications towards the end of the story.

Kaccha Limboo is about 13 year old Shambhu. He is fat and his classmates make fun of him for that. He keeps landing up in trouble, not always for his own fault. He desires to belong to a group of friends but they don't want him. He also likes a girl and tries calling her on her mobile phones but he cannot go meet her in person as he lied that he is from a senior class. At home his mother is pregnant and hence the attention that he used to get has diminished. The situations only make him more aggressive and he decides to run away from home. When he does, he meets Vithal, who is younger and a complete reverse of what he is. And they both decided to run away. As mentioned earlier the film is filled with cute moments, which probably the director had to work hard to get right. And then he falls prey to the same old 'love for his own hard work' phenomenon. So he includes a whole lot of such moments and as an audience you would not complain till you realize that the story is not moving anywhere. What happens much after the interval should have happened by interval. And even then things tend to go on a continuous loop till the director realizes that he needs to end the film and he uses an axe to chalk out a very smart end - so smart that it leaves you confused!

Technically the film is just about passable be it cinematography, editing of music. Screenplay could have been worked on But the pluses in the acting department take care of a lot of negatives that the film has. Taher Sutterwala is very impressive as Shambhu while Chinmay Kamle scores as Vithal. Sarika sparkles.

Overall, Kaccha Limboo demands a watch for those moments and the performances. But these apart it falls back as a mediocre project. Don't expect it to keep you entertained all the while.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.