Jai Maharashtra Dhaba, Bhatinda

Story: Sayaji Nimbalkar (Abhijeet Khandkekar) is a young Marathi boy who runs a dhaba in Punjab. He has been successful in making Marathi delicacies popular among the locals. After a period he meets lovely Jasminder Kaur (Prarthana Behere) and there starts the love story between a Punjabi ‘mundi’ and Maharashtrian ‘mulga’ which is ‘Jai Maharashtra Dhaba, Bhatinda’.

Review: Success of any movie vastly depends on its subject and director Avadhooot Gupte is known for giving variety to his audience. ‘JMDB’ talks about Maharashtrian culture, Maharashtrian pride and Maharashtrian mentality. There are chances that you might see resemblance with Yash Chopra’s ‘DDLJ’ but with unusual climax the director completely takes his audience by surprise. One might expect to see the efforts Sayaji goes through to set up a Maharashtrian dhaba in Punjab, his hard work, his intelligence to make it popular but ‘JMDB’ lacks to show all this. It starts with the dhaba and slowly moves towards Sayaji-Jasmit’s love angle. At times, movie’s first and second half comes in flashback which is bit confusing.

Small screen’s actor Abhijeet Khandkekar and Prarthana Behere has debuted on big screen with this movie and they are natural in front of the camera. Vikram Gokhale, Shubhangi Latkar, Priyadarshan Jadhav justify their characters. Nilesh Mohrir’s music suits the script. Though the title generates curiosity, the story deflates it!!