AAMDANNI ATHANNI KHARCHA RUPAIYA

Director: K. Raghvendra Rao
Music: Himesh Reshamiya
Lyrics: Sudhakar Sharma
Producer: G. A. Seshagiri Rao
Starring: Govinda, Juhi Chawla, Tabu, Chandrachur Singh

RS RATING: 2/10

Govinda plays Bhishma, a goonda who has reformed after his marriage. He used to do all sorts of bad things before marriage, but ever since he married Jhumri (Juhi Chawla) he changed for the good and started working well.

Govinda’s wife also works earning a decent amount of money and they shift to Mumbai. They move into a locality called Kakad Colony where three families stay. Ravi (Chandrachur Singh), Vijay (Vinay Anand) and Appu Khote (Johnny Lever) are married to Meena (Tabu), Anjali (Isha Koppikar) and Vimla (Ketaki Dave).

Khote is a perpetual wife beater and reels in that. The audience too seems to laugh at atrocious jokes and at scenes where he brutally beats up his wife. One does not understand what kind of literacy it needs to make this kind of a film.

Anyway the other two women are also subject to bad times, because their husbands too do not give enough money home. They also spend money on various things and even borrow money from their office peon (Sayaji Shinde).

The three who are mechanics are once sacked from their company when they confront their manager (Prem Chopra) and ask him for a bonus in the most atrocious manner possible.

These men are at times scared of their wives and at times not. The director is thus so confused that he even gets them to become male chauvinist pigs at times and at the same times get scared of their wives.

So these three move off to Hyderabad to meet Appu Khote’s former friend and childhood buddy Dhokla Seth (Shakti Kapoor) in search of a jogb. He appoints these idiots as his business partners on the advice of the idiotic scriptwriter of the film. But as soon as they meet Dhokla Seth, the cops raid Seth’s house and catch him, as he is a big smuggler.

The three are thrashed by the Hyderabadi cops and they return home to find that the peon has come home and threatened their wives with dire consequences and thus they are now working. The husbands had been against their wives going to work earlier itself.

But one does not understand that when there is a need, why the men have a problem. Again a major hole in the script.

The three now try and beat up Bhishma and Jhumri as they have helped their wives and got them jobs, but are held back by cops who come and diffuse the situation. Now the three women help their husbands get back their jobs. But the men throw them out of the house.

Meanwhile Ravi’s daughter gets a problem in her heart and the three do a smuggling job for Dhokla Seth and are caught with drugs. But Jhumri helps Meena save her child after the women in the factory where Meena, Jhumri, Anjalia and Vimla work help them, raise some money. The ending is happy, but the film is very unhappy.

A raunchy number by Mink seems to only induce front benchers and will thus keep the family audiences away from the film too. The attempt to bring in sex into a film where violence too has creeped in.

The performances are ok, but only Johnny Lever and Ketaki Dave are good. They are the actual stars of the film, but their roles are so bad, that one feels bad for them.

Music is just okay. Nothing more to say. Aamdanni Athanni is a film which does not even deserve fifty paise worth of praise. Made by K Raghavendra Rao BA (A futile attempt to show a high literacy rate) the film does not teach anything good.

While Govinda’s posters have been splashed all over the nation, the man and his heroine Juhi Chawla have only extended guest appearances in the film.

REVIEWED BY ANUSHA SAMIR GILL