Sulemani Keeda review: Gives us a couple of struggling script-writers that makes us smile

Director : Amit V Masurkar

There’s something likeable about stories of eager young things trying to break into the movies, as well as looking for the big life answers. And that has always been the case.

Sulemani Keeda gives us a couple of struggling script-writers that make us smile. But the film takes the “slacker” part of its title (slacker comedy) a bit too seriously: these kids are all right, but their journey is not very new, and their script is, yes, slack.

The best part of the film is the way everything feels authentic and lived-in: the apartment of the wannbe script-writers Mainak and Dulal (Tewari and Kasturia) is just so; as is the party, and the weed-and-alcohol fuelled chatter at the house of the sweet girl (Aditi Vasudev) they bump into at a book-shop.

The conversation is a highlight, as it should be: you hear these characters talk, and you know you can meet them somewhere, someplace. And that goes for the fat cat producer’s deluded sonny boy (Karan Mirchandani), who wants to make it big by doing “something different”.

The huge divide between these we-are-writing-the-next-big-film fellows and the guys who actually make the biggies is emphasised with Mahesh Bhatt and Anil Sharma playing themselves and telling the “strugglers” what they need to do to break into big, bad Bollywood.

The three main characters as well as the bit parts do their job well. But after a point, it all becomes a bit too laidback, even the trying-to-get-laid bit. A little more fun would have put a little more, much-needed spring into Sulemani Keeda, which apparently loosely translates as “pain in the rear”. The title has its tongue firmly in the cheek; the film not as much.