This energetic bittersweet comedy, more accurately perhaps – drama with a sense of humour, Hulla turns a contemporary eye on something that is taken too much for granted in Indian cities, especially Mumbai – private space. It’s about the clash between a stockbroker who is not allowed to sleep at night and a small-time trader who won’t let him (as the secretary of the building society they live in). This seemingly trivial, even laughable, problem eventually snowballs into disasters for both of them and their families, while unspooling the attitudes of people around them.
Raj and Abha, a couple in their early-thirties, move into their new 2-bedroom flat in a Mumbai suburb. They are both very happy as only new home-owners can be in Mumbai. Since the flat is in a residential complex away from the bustle of the city and the main road, they both expect peace and quiet.
Raj (Sushant Singh) is an aggressive sub-broker in a prosperous broking firm where he is considered a star. Abha (Kartikadevi Rane) is a marketing professional who is doing well in her job. They have no children. Their promising careers now seem to be nicely complemented by domestic stability.
However, every night Raj is disturbed by strange screechy noises. They wake him several times in the nights (Abha is undisturbed though). Finally one night, Raj discovers that it is the nightwatchman blowing the whistle periodically to scare thieves away. The nightwatchman – Matthew, refers Raj to Janardhan (Rajat Kapoor), the new secretary of the building society, who has passed these orders to enhance security.
Raj appeals to Janardhan the next day, but meets a brick wall. Janardhan refuses to stop the whistling as according to him the safety of the community is much more important than the comfort of one individual. A society meeting is called and the whistling is replaced by the banging of the stick. But this is still loud enough to disturb Raj, so his problem continues.
Janardhan is a small time businessman and his nagging wife constantly reminds him of his failure to make it big and life passing them by. On being appointed secretary of the society, Janardhan overcompensates for his mid-life crisis by overzealously passing orders.
The tussle between Raj and Janardhan takes on serious proportions and significantly alters both their lives. The nightly disturbances lead to a domino effect which completely destroys Raj’s judgement, composure, professional and personal life. His bid to salvage the situation and get his own back at Janardhan lead to a sequence of events involving Raj, Janardhan and the nightwatchman Matthew which eventually end with their lives get extraordinarily realigned at the end despite the innocuous beginnings.
Sushant Singh and Rajat Kapoor play parts so convincingly that they naturally appear as the society members in Hulla. The sweet looking Kartikadevi Rane is competent. Mandeep Mazumdar, Vrajesh Hirjee and Darshan Jariwala are just natural. But the credit goes to the actor (Chandrachood Karnik) enacting the role of the security guard.
Debutante director Jaideep Varma comes up with a story you can identify with, especially by those living in Mumbai as shown in Hulla. Originality in the subject matter, and its execution makes Hulla an above average comedy drama, which makes you break into uncontrollable laughter at times.
Cast of Hulla –
Raj – Sushant Singh
Janardhan – Rajat Kapoor
Abha – Kartikadevi Rane
Kamini – Mandeep
Mathew – Chandrachood Karnik
Dev – Vrajesh Hirjee
Gonsalves – Dibyendu Bhattacharya
Khadilkar – Dinesh Thakkerr
Kulkarni – Balaji Deshpande
Chaddha – Sushil Parashar
Nasser Abdullah
Datta Sonawane
Jayant Gadekar
Raja Hudda
Sonamuni Jayant
Vaibhav Mathur
Aanshika Srivastava
Smita Oak
Anil Bhagwat
Bhagyashree Desai
Shailesh
Special Appearance: Darshan Jariwala, Ravi Jhankal
CREDITS of Hulla-
Writer-Director – Jaideep Varma
Producer – Sunil Doshi
Executive Producer – Cartwheel Features
Music – Indian Ocean
Cinematography – Paramvir Singh
Sound Design – Vivek
Editor – Nimish Gaur
Art Director – Alok Haldar
Associate Director – Nimish Gaur
Assistant Directors – Sumit Kilam, Shriya Ghate, Ruchi Srivastav, Swapnil Gandhi
Assistant Editor – Khushboo Raj
Asst. Cinematographer – Dhiren Shukla
Location Sound – Santosh Kumar
Recording Studio (Background Music) – Kshitij studios, New Delhi
Sound Engineer – Akash Gupta
Sound Design Studio – Hash Tone Sound, Mumbai
Make-up – Arif Sheik
Production – Gurudas Pai, Hanumanta Yalka
Casting – Joginder Singh
Hulla, movie review
