Sniff movie review: This Amole Gupte film is neither sharp nor magical enough

Ta da. The boy with the blocked olfactory senses can now sniff out stuff from far and wide: pickles in jars an inch away, and ‘car chors’ miles off.

What an absolutely lovely premise for a film crafted for children, which adults can potentially also enjoy. But Amole Gupte, who gave us the delightful Stanley Ka Dabba, falters with this one, because of a slack plot and treatment.

We are familiar with Gupte’s skills in getting together children who are lively and natural. Such a pleasure, especially in a Bollywood film which gets its young ‘uns to be cute and precious and speak in annoyingly sing-song accents.

Sunny and his best school pal who comes to his rescue when he (Sunny) is being bullied, and the rest of the ‘bachchas’ in the colony (where Sunny lives) behave just like the real-life ones do. We enjoy being with them, whether they are just lounging about, or when they get busy, trying to crack a car thieving case.

Sniff is all heart, but neither sharp nor magical enough. With a couple of exceptions, especially Sikri as Sunny’s wizened pickle-creating grandma, the adults are dull and drawn with a heavy-hand.

Also, why use a most tired device of all to raise laughter? A clumpy female cop played by Sushmita Mukherjee is made to slap a diabetic ‘mithai-stealer’ (Guha) repeatedly, and instead of laughing, we cringe.

It’s Sunny and co who make us watch. And how nice to see a film in which the kids are all right.