Last updated on April 24th, 2022 at 06:07 pm
Sharmaji Namkeen, Amazon Prime Video’s latest offering, is worth seeing thanks to delightful performances by the late Rishi Kapoor and Paresh Rawal, despite being fairly repetitive and having a shallow plot that feels stretched for its 121 minutes. When Kapoor fell unwell, Rawal stepped in to play Sharmaji, the titular character. Actually, director-writer Hitesh Bhatiya used a creative way to defuse a crisis. The film was in the middle of production when Kapoor was diagnosed with cancer.
Surprisingly, the two actors alternate playing Sharmaji, and the transition is smooth thanks to clever editing. In fact, we don’t appear to notice because they seamlessly merge together.
“One thing that was obvious in our thoughts was that we were going to finish this movie,” producer Ritesh Sidhwani told NDTV. We contemplated our options for six to eight months. Ranbir Kapoor was involved in the production. We were considering prosthetics and having Ranbir photograph us in them. That, however, was not an option. The next alternative was to cast someone else, which has never been done before in Hindi cinema. We needed to find a fantastic actor… It’s not that Rishi Kapoor appears in the first part of the film and Paresh Rawal appears in the second; their moments are intercut throughout the picture, and you’ll notice that they merge into one.”
The film opens with Sharmaji, played by Ranbir Kapoor, getting a voluntary retirement check and presents at a celebration, but he is not overjoyed. He is only 58 years old and is physically and mentally fit enough to have been thrown out of a company that was the market leader in home appliances. He spends his “retired life,” as a widower with two grown-up sons, cooking for them and conducting domestic errands. He is a foodie who enjoys experimenting with different recipes and takes pride in his cooking abilities.
By chance, he meets a group of ladies and is persuaded to make food for their kitty parties. He is first hesitant, but his boyhood buddy Sikka (Satish Kaushik) persuades him to take it up as an enjoyable pastime. “ In the end, He informs Sharmaji, “After all, providing meals is a wonderful honour.”
His boys, on the other hand, are unaware of their father’s newfound excitement, and he loves being a member of the women’s group, which is led by Juhi Chawla’s Veena Manchanda. They are enthralled by the way he teases their taste buds, and it’s all very enticing. However, a stray video of him dancing with the group is enough to agitate Rinku (Suhail Nayyar), his oldest son. He’s embarrassed and in a pickle, especially as his wedding to Urmi (Isha Talwar), an office colleague, approaches.
Where Sharmaji Namkeen falls short is in its final act, which features some unneeded bungling in a police station, which seems out of place in the otherwise humorous story. A botched ending to a film that was undeniably entertaining, with Kapoor and Rawal at their most enthralling — and perfectly complementing each other.