Story: Atheist Kanjilal Mehta takes 'God' to court after an earthquake destroys his shop. Suddenly, 'Krishna Vasudev Yadav' shows up - does divine intervention occur?
Movie Review: Straight on, OMG is Paresh Rawal's movie - and one of his best. Akshay Kumar plays a small and sacred role but OMG is largely powered by Rawal's performance as Kanjilal Mehta, a cynical Gujarati shopkeeper in Mumbai's
Chor Bazaar, hardcore atheist who merrily dupes the believing into buying Krishna statues before whom Kanji trills, "
Kootchie kootchie, natkhat!" The atheist even disrupts a
matki phoro ceremony for Krishna where, despite a cracking guest performance by Sonakshi Sinha and Prabhudeva to '
Go-Go-Go-Govinda' - watch the latter's buttery moves and the former's rock-chick hair - Kanjilal rains on the party.
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An earthquake follows, reducing just one shop to rubble - Kanjilal's. His insurance company refuses to pay, citing an act of God. Facing ruin, Kanji takes God - as represented by 'collection officers', religious leaders Swami Leeladhar (Chakrabarty, super), Siddheshwar (Namdeo, hamming it up to Italian deli-level) and sexy sanyasin Mata Gopi (Poonam Jhawar) - to court demanding compensation. Goons try to kill Kanji - but 'consultant' Krishna Vasudev Yadav saves him via a thrilling motorbike ride - then moves into his house. The trial circles deep philosophy, yet tongues stay firmly in cheek as Kanji tells the outraged swamis, "
Ye mujhe kya Gita sikhayenge - inka IQ room temperature
se bhi low hai."
Rawal is pure pleasure when he naughtily points out, "
Recession mein toh inka dhanda double ho jata hai!", when debating being boiled in oil down in hell, he asks, "
Mein aadmi hoon ya pakora?" or, when he states that such religion - superstition, fear, ignorance - "
insaan ko bebas ya aatankwadi banata hai." It is far better, he remarks, to donate milk to the hungry than pour it over a shrine - and into a drain, to give to the needy rather than enrich religious commerce working on human weakness and woe via 'exchange offers' with the divine.
Rawal's conviction is
OMG's bedrock - but its beauty comes from his dynamics with Krishna (Kumar, channeling a Twilight-like zone of motorbikes, overcoats and chiseled looks), who saves his life, educates him via sacred texts and gently instructs an annoyed housewife yelling Kanji is a
nastik to eat her ice-cream before it melts. Few Bollywood actors do loopy-plus-hot as well as Kumar and he's silken here, all delicate hints and half-smiles, smoothly playing the flute as Kanji shouts, "
O Hari Prasad! O Chaurasia!"
Their chemistry is electric, Rawal wryly noting, "
Suit-boot mein aya Kanhaiya", backed by Chakrabarty too, biting into the role of a long-haired swami speaking in softly mincing tones, using his hands down to one finger in a terrific take-off. Other acting (Puri, a Muslim lawyer helping Kanji, Manjrekar as lawyer Sardesai, Lubna Salim as Kanji's wide-eyed wife Susheela) is strictly average but covered by an astonishingly good background track pepping up the pace, adding zing but never distracting from a complex story told in a simple way.
On the downside, OMG's production values are not high-gloss and it sags and looks stagey at times. Importantly though, in a nation obsessed with
taweezes and tonsures, fasts and
fasaads, the symbolic over the sensible,
OMG conveys a serious message this festive season - God is to be found in human beings. And, rather like Hindi films of an earlier age, it does so in a light and unusual way.
Hallelujah.