Toaster Movie Review: Rajkummar Rao is the crisp edge in this overcooked chaos

Story: When a miserly man goes to absurd lengths to retrieve a toaster he gifted at a wedding, he finds himself pulled into a bizarre mess involving multiple murders, blackmail, and darkly twisted consequences.Review: Meet Ramakant (Rajkummar Rao) — a man whose stinginess is not just a habit, but almost a way of life. He argues with a telecom executive over a six-rupee extra charge on his monthly bill, switches off the lights and fan the moment he walks into his home to save on electricity, and is forever on the lookout for a free meal. So, naturally, when his wife Shilpa (Sanya Malhotra) buys a toaster worth Rs 5,000 as a wedding gift, Ramakant cannot keep calm. And when he learns that the wedding has fallen through, he sets off on a mission to retrieve it. The toaster, however, has already been donated to an orphanage run by the equally tight-fisted and sharp-tongued Nandini (Farah Khan), who refuses to give it back. What begins as a silly pursuit over a household appliance soon snowballs into a madcap chain of events involving murder, blackmail, lust, and a steadily escalating sense of chaos.Rajkummar Rao, also a co-producer alongside his wife Patralekhaa, is the film’s biggest strength. As the emotional and comic anchor of this dark comedy, he carries the madness with complete conviction. However foolish, impractical, or outright ridiculous Ramakant may seem on paper, Rao never lets the character drift into caricature. He grounds the absurdity with enough sincerity to keep the audience invested, even when the situation goes completely off the rails. That conviction is crucial because writer Parveez Shaikh’s story, while starting off with a refreshingly simple premise, keeps getting stranger, more erratic, and at times increasingly silly as it progresses. Still, aided by Rao’s performance and a supporting cast that largely understands the tone, the film manages to remain watchable and often entertaining.Debutant director Vivek Daschaudhary shows a decent grip on the material and is able to hold together much of the film’s absurdity, even as the script begins to stretch itself thin. The humour lands often enough in the first half, and the dialogue remains sharp and consistently funny, which helps the film stay afloat. But once the second half kicks in, the narrative starts to lose its grip. The film introduces one bizarre subplot after another, and while some of these detours are amusing in isolation, together they begin to weigh the story down. The pacing becomes uneven, and what begins as a fresh dark comedy gradually starts to feel overstretched.Jishnu Bhattacharjee’s cinematography suits the modest, middle-class world the film is trying to portray. There is a lived-in quality to the visuals that helps reinforce the everyday desperation of its characters. The supporting cast, which includes actors like Abhishek Banerjee, Seema Pahwa, Sanya Malhotra, Archana Puran Singh and Upendra Limaye, bring individual sparks to the narrative, though not all of them are used to their full potential. The ensemble gives the film texture and helps build the messy little universe around Ramakant’s obsession, even when the script itself becomes increasingly cluttered. The absence of songs is also a welcome creative choice, as it keeps the film moving and prevents unnecessary distractions.Overall, Toaster is a dark comedy that knows exactly what kind of madness it wants to serve, and for the most part, it serves it well. It is flawed, uneven, and often overcooked, but it still has enough bite to make it palatable.