Maan Gaye Mughal-e-Azam is a contemporary comedy story is set in Goa of 1993 when terrorists are plotting to bomb-blast Mumbai.
In a small Goan town is a theatre company managed by Uday Shankar Mazumdar (Paresh Rawal) and his wife Shabnam (Mallika Sherawat).
This drama troupe – Kalakar Natak Company produces socially relevant, thought-provoking plays with simple comedy and their intention is to change the society one day and everyone will say, ‘Maan Gaye Mughal-E-Azam’.
Arjun (Rahul Bose) is one of the regulars in the audience. He is a R.A.W. agent and has a crush on Shabnam. The theatre company gets involved with an undercover agent who is working on saving the country from a bomb blast. One by one they come forward to help and are eventually instrumental in making a deadly game plan to save the world.
Things take a twist when Arjun gets to know of this deadly plan of the terrorists.
The director using this subject and could have made a punchy execution of a classic comedy. However it appears cheap imitations of real life characters. Kay Kay Menon who is playing a Ghazal Singer is shown involved with the terrorists. Even this part is neither comic nor seriously threatening as shown as Naseeruddin Shah’s negative role in ‘Sarfarosh’.
One scene worth a mention is where Paresh Rawal guises himself as a ghazal singer with a fake beard and penetrates into the network of a local underworld gangster. It is interesting how he gets away with an ingenious tactic. Otherwise, during other instances in the film one gets the feeling of not-so-good comedy and there are some cheap sequences trying to make you laugh.
Considering the general perception that slapstick performances are supposed to be this way – they were not bad performances. Paresh Rawal shines in this fare. Mallika Sherawat does what she usually does in most of her movies, flaunt her cleavage, and looks hot more so in the seduction scenes. Unfortunately Rahul Bose and Kay Kay Menon have no scope on this film.
The music by Anu Malik is just average, and the only highlight is the title song which is a craze.
In conclusion, Maan Gaye Mughal-e-Azam, the movie is not entertaining enough. It is just a confused mixture of drama, satire and “attempted” comedy.
Cast of Maan Gaye Mughal-e-Azam:
Shabnam – Mallika Sherawat
Rahul Bose
Paresh Rawal
Kay Kay Menon
Pawan Malhotra
CREDITS of Maan Gaye Mughal-e-Azam:
Directed by Sanjay Chel
Writer – Sanjay Chel
Produced by Ratan Jain
Original Music by Anu Malik
Cinematography by Madhu Ambat
Dialogues, Screenplay – Sanjay Chell, Sunil Munshi
Music Director: Anu Malik
Sound Department (Mixer) – Rajendra Hegde
Digital intermediate / Visual effects production head – Rajiv Raghunathan
Compositor – Muthu Stalin
Film Editor – Salil Deshpande
Maan Gaye Mughal-e-Azam, movie review
