Deool Band

An atheist scientist comes back from the USA to help ISRO in a matter of national security.

Review: For those of you have watched the trailer of this film, it must be crystal clear that the film is about an atheist whose life turns upside down after he shuts down the temple of Swami Samartha. Yet, with some hope that there must be more to the film and that the trailer might be misleading, one went to watch Deool Banda, only to be disappointed.

So here’s the thing. A brilliant Indian-origin scientist Raghav Shashtri (Mahajani), the creator of Raghav Frequency which is a transmission frequency that is supposed to aid the ISRO in transmitting threat alarms faster to the security forces of the country in case of a terrorist attack, is a hardcore atheist. When news of him being on the hit-list of two dreaded terrorists reaches the Indian government, he is put up in a housing society citing security reasons. Now, this “highly secure area” has a temple of Swami Samartha where bhajans and celebrations keep happening daily. Fed up with the daily ‘noise’, Raghav pulls some strings and gets the temple closed only to find the Swami (Joshi) at his doorstep. From now on, wherever Raghav goes, the Swami follows.

There is no such thing as a story in 'Deool Banda' and it is more like a set of incidents weaved loosely around propaganda to preach the thoughts of Swami Samartha. Apart from Raghav’s hate and problems, there is also an ATS unit that has been mobilised to hunt down the terrorists and residents of the society who refuse to hear a single word against Swami.

The silver lining is Mohan Joshi and Gashmeer Mahajani’s acting. Joshi keeps the humour intact in his role of Swami Samartha and it is precisely this humour that makes the film watchable. Gashmeer has the potential to make it big as he displays talent even in a film that doesn’t have much scope for anything apart from getting people to believe in Swami’s existence. Joshi’s one-liners add a dose of humour and prevent the film from being too preachy, but only to a small extent.

The time taken by the makers to film and release the film was a meagre five months and the hastiness shows. Apart from Swami Samartha followers, the film doesn’t hold much in store for anyone else. Besides, the three-hour runtime is a lot of time to sit through at one place.