Zokkomon Hindi

Director:Satyajit Bhatkal

Writers: Lancy Fernandes,Svati Bhatkal,Satyajit Bhatkal

Cast: Darsheel Safary,Manjari Fadnis,Anupam Kher,Tinnu Anand,Gargi Datar,Jai Vyas

Meet Kunal Darsheel Safary,an orphan who is studying in a Dehra Dun boarding school,happy with his lot. Suddenly his guardian and uncle Anupam Kher takes him back to his small town for reasons never explained. Here his wife and he begin ill-treating the boy. The local school is replete with monster-teachers who cane,whip and beat the students. Why the parents of the kids never complain and how a small-town school gets as many students as a city institution are not explained either.

Soon,chachas embezzling of government funds is exposed and he dumps Kunal in far-off Mumbai and states that he was killed in a mishap so that he can inherit Kunals fathers assets to repay the governmenta daft concept as Kunal is neither so young nor dumb. Kunal befriends a lonely girl Manjari Fadnis in Mumbai but they too are separated on the way back to his town,where Kunal wants to confront the evil uncle.

When Kunal returns,he is thus taken for a ghost by the village,and his uncle,who is also the local leader,now wants to finally murder him. But Kunal escapes to the local haunted mansion and finds a scientist Anupam Kher again in unrecognisable make-up working secretly inside. With his help and the assistance of technology,Kunal becomes Zokkomon,the super-kid and the two teach a lesson to the baddies,stop people from being superstitious and punish the evil chacha.

While the concept is praiseworthy of ridding a small-town of social evils human and otherwiseand dogmas,the storyline is absurd and ludicrous and one wonders how a giant like Disney approved the script. Kunal permanently wears braces with no dentist in sight. How does the scientist live so secretly for years and maintain himself and his equipment? How are all the optical tricks managed? The intelligence of children is taken for granted. The script is so unengaging that the short length seems interminable at many a point.

The technical wizardry does not impress because of the facile absurdity of everything. The actors are so-so,though Darsheel is sincere.

RATING: One star for Darsheel,one star for a good basic idea. But ideas dont make films,scripts do,so a minus star for the lack of a script!