Movie Review: Angrezi Medium
Movie Review: ‘Angrezi Medium’
Rating: 3/5
Director: Homi Adajania
Cast: Irrfan Khan, Deepak Dobriyal, Radhika Madan, Ranvir Shorey, Pankaj Tripathi
Angrezi Medium is the tale of a father’s endeavour to fulfill his teenager daughter’s wish to study in London. The crazy extremes he goes through to make it happen is what drives Homi Adajania’s new film as well as brings it down.
Champak Bansal played by Irrfan Khan runs a sweets shop right next to his terribly competitive brother’s (Deepak Dobriyal) while they wrangle over a copyright court case deciding which family member should keep the brand name Ghasiteram.
Outside the professional battlefield though, the duo and their buddy (Kiku Sharda) hang out every night for drinks and dramatic confessions. Follow Spotlife Asia for latest Entertainment and Lifestyle news.
When not finding fun in their comical tiffs, Angrezi Medium focuses on the emotional ties binding single parent Champak and his wide-eyed daughter Tarika (Radhika Madan).
loses a fine opportunity to document an authentic struggle of seeking overseas education by rambling off into disproportionate gags befitting a brainless comedy, which is exactly what this would be if not for Irrfan and Dobriyal’s combined wizardry.
Irrfan’s gift to take idiocy with a pinch of salt and effortlessly transform into a sentimental figure every time an implausible situation arises conceals the script’s glaring inadequacies.
He finds terrific support in Dobriyal’s droll hustler known to turn into a picture of uprightness, two drinks down.
Irrfan’s scenes with Radhika Madan are equally tender and heartfelt. Although Madan’s character is borderline wannabe, the radiant actress uses her innate spunk and sensitivity to justify the novelty and excitement she is witnessing all around her.
Despite a superb set of actors at its disposal, Angrezi Medium squanders away their charisma to play undistinguished, unremarkable characters.
There is Kareena Kapoor Khan’s dishy London cop in her perfectly manicured, painted nails, huffing and puffing over criminals and an estranged mom (Dimple Kapadia). It is as if the strained mother-daughter equation belongs to another movie and fails to draw parallels with Champak-Tarika’s growing discord.
Ranvir Shorey’s swindler stuck in pardes has cliché written all over it while Pankaj Tripathi’s Dubai-based shady travel agent plays for poorly penned laughs.
They are all lovely on their own but make little sense in Angrezi Medium’s muddled context.
At the end of its ensuing pandemonium and abundant melodrama, Angrezi Medium reveals little understanding of ambitious learners or parenting woes.
