Doosri Gosht (Marathi) / Needs to be more convincing

Cast: Vikram Gokhale, Siddharth Chandekar, Sandeep Mehta, Neha Pendse, Anand Ingle, Bharti Patil, Smita Sarvade, Ram Kolhatkar, Girish Joshi, Sampada Joglekar-Kulkarni, child artist Aaditya Ganu, Renuka Shahane, Pratiksha Lonkar, Mugdha Godbole, Adhir Bhat, Sunil Tawde and others.

By Sunil Nandgoankar

Expectations are always very high from film-makers who have been churning out good, subject-oriented films that have been hits and which have touched a chord among the audience. This, in turn, becomes the responsibility on the part of the film-maker to live up to the expectations of their fans and audiences. With immense pressure comes the task of being a choosy and picky about their subjects. Chandrakant Kulkarni is one such director who has always made good films that have reached the audience, irrespective of their box-office fates. He is now back with Doosri Gosht which has a point to raise but unfortunately it does not really succeed in grasping the audiences’ attention. It has the simple rags-to-riches story.
Dagdu Shinde belongs to the Dalit community. He is not interest in studying. Due to poverty and hunger, he starts stealing but he is punished by his mother Mothi Aai. So he starts to earn and in the process he also begins to learn things. Mothi Aai has always told him a tale of a poor boy who succeeds in improving his life and becomes a tehsildar. One day Dagdu dreams of leading a good life and that he has become a big man in the society; even bigger than the tehsildar. While working as a domestic help in an affluent upper cast family, he learned lot about life and society. Dagdu Shinde manages to complete his college education followed by a degree in law. Gradually he gets the opportunity to enter into politics and he becomes a successful political leader.
The hero of the film Dagdu alias Prassannakumar Shinde resembles a real life politician of India. Till date, films on many political personality have been made and released after their death. This film is an exception as it apparently is loosely based on minister Sushilkumar Shinde’s life. However, this film does not look or feel like a biopic as it is made like a commercial film. Also they have tried to mention through the film that a common man can certainly achieve a political career irrespective of whether he is poor or from any caste.
Actors Siddharth Chandekar and Vikram Gokhale who have enacted the roles of young and old Dagdu, have done a good job. The film also shows the lookalikes of many famous and well-known political personalities with different names and the audiences can easily identify with the characters and their real life personalities.
The film starts with a flashback and successfully manages to captivate the audience. All the actors have done an excellent job. The two songs in the film are beautiful. All the technical details of the film are also excellent. However, director Chandrakant Kulkarni and screenplay writers Ajit Dalvi and Prashant Dalvi have not shown the struggle of the main protagonist in a very convincing manner. This could have impacted the film majorly.