The Common Man Speaks

OMG! Oh My God Review

Director: Umesh Shukla

Producers: Akshay Kumar, Paresh Rawal and Ashvini Yardi

Writer: Umesh Shukla (Story, Screenplay and Dialogues)

Cast: Paresh Rawal, Akshay Kumar, Mithun Chakraborty, Mahesh Manjrekar, Govind Namdeo, Poonam Jhaver, Nidhi Subbaiah

Music: Himesh Reshammiya, Anjjan-Meet Bros, Sachin-Jigar

Rating: * * * *

Plot: A complete non-believer, Kanji Mehta (Paresh Rawal) earns great profit by taking advantage of people’s blind religious faith. He sells random idol of Gods and attaches false mythological history with them which obliges people to buy them at a giveaway price. One day, Kanji goes a bit too far by halting a Dahi Handi festival by spreading a rumour.

Just then, his shop is destroyed in an earthquake. Worse, he is unable to recover losses as the insurance company regards earthquake as an ‘act of God’. Hence, Kanji sues God in the court of law. His argument is simple – If there is God, He will appear in court!

Review: In order to please and worship God, a number of religious rituals are followed in India like pouring hundreds of liters of milk on a Shivling, offering many chaadars in a dargah or offering lakhs of candles in churches. However, Umesh Shukla’s OMG! Oh My God rubbishes off all these rituals while stating that all one needs to do is be a good human and help the needy in order to impress Him. It also gives a moral slap to those who carry out business in the name of God. The powerful message presented in an entertaining manner makes sure the film is worth watching more than once.

Like all well made films, OMG! Oh My God has a very meaty and a fast moving script. Umesh Shukla succeeds in narrating the tale at a steady pace, defining characters clearly and at the same time providing some quality humour. The first twist in the story, which comes very early, gives rise to a number of powerful and entertaining scenes. A human lodging a court case against God is never seen before in a Hindi film. Of course, Akshay Kumar’s arrival provides the icing on the cake.

Thankfully, unlike a number of Hindi films, OMG maintains momentum in the second half too in terms of story development and the script. It is during this period where there a number of clap-worthy scenes which are enlightening and a real treat! Some further interesting twists ensure a heartwarming as well as an eye-opening climax.

The whole team of OMG deserves applause for daring to give such a bold message in a country where people are obsessed with blindfaith which certainly doesn’t do any good to them or the society.

If one tries to find flipsides, one can include some scenes showing miracles and also the fact that Kanji’s original mission goes off-track in between. But since these points also help in bringing the final outcome, you don’t really mind. However, there are chances of some over-sensitive God worshippers might get offended by some scenes and dialogues.

Talking about the technical departments, the cinematography, background score and editing are fine. Two songs ‘Go Go Go Govinda’ and ‘Mere Nishaan’ suit the situations while ‘Ji Ji Ji’ is superb due to the lyrics.

Paresh Rawal’s performance deserves a standing ovation. He gets into the skin of the character and displays every emotion with ease. This will surely be one of the talked about performances of his career. It is risky to play a character like God but Akshay Kumar manages that easily and gives a lovable act. However, Mithun Chakraborty’s act as a gay swami wasn’t amusing. There was no need to include such feminine mannerisms in the character.

Govind Namdeo is effective as a short tempered priest. Nikhil Ratnaparkhi does very well as Rawal’s loyal friend. Murli Sharma, Lubna Salim, Poonam Jhaver and others are not bad.

Overall, OMG Oh My God shouldn’t be missed for it gives a great message while providing quality entertainment. The film needs word-out-mouth to succeed at the box-office.