The Hindi remake of Telugu film Middle Class Abbayi, Nikamma tries hard to be a massy entertainer but falls flat

Mona

Two brothers, played by Sameer Soni and Abhimanyu Dassani, are living life full of love and care, till the bhabhi (Shilpa Shetty) enters. The Ram-Lakhan jodi is broken and ‘nikamma’ devar is packed off with bhabhi to a new posting in UP. How the good for nothing fellow is being turned into a hardworking, honest man is the trajectory of the story till bhabhi ends up in enmity with a taxi mafia don who aims to be the next MLA.

The devar-bhabhi duo taking on the villain takes the plot forward in Sabbir Khan’s directorial, Nikamma.

Based on Venu Sriram’s Telugu film Middle Class Abbayi (2017), Nikamma has Abhimanyu Dassani and Shilpa Shetty playing the devar-bhabhi Adi and Avni. While in the Telugu version, performances by Nani, Sai Pallavi and Bhumika Chawla engaged the audience, in its Hindi outing casting is sure not a strong suit. The film has all the jingbang of a commercial entertainer – a misunderstood character, hero with a special power (Adi’s memory is very sharp), an honest officer challenged by a mafia don, stylised dance moves to clichéd dialogues – Jeet to tabhi gaya tha jab maine soch liya tha, Jo mujhse jeetne ki koshish karta hai vo apni khud ki zindagi haar jata hai and the running against the clock climax. With Heropanti, Baaghi and Munna Michael under his belt, director Sabbir Khan sure knows all about massy, masala entertainer, but he falls flat in Nikamma. If the first half languidly establishes the plot in this two-and-a-half- hour film, twists and turns in the second hasten the story but not to much effect.

Abhimanyu Dassani’s third film screen outing has him do it all – play cricket, romance and fight the goons. But emoting sure isn’t his strong suit. Shilpa Shetty gets ample screen time post interval but invokes anything but the ‘bhabhi ma’ feeling. Her svelte figure and cotton sarees sure are drool-worthy though. Singer-actor Shirley Setia looks pretty in her debut film but she doesn’t get much to do. Abhimanyu Singh in villain Vikramjeet Bisht’s shoes invokes laughter rather than fear. If anything one likes it is the dig he makes at himself over bringing bade bhaiya aka Raman (Sameer Soni) back in the later half. The music is passable. The peppy title track rolls in the end credits. The film takes one back to 80s era of massy films, but the times and audience have leaped much ahead. Call it keeping with the trend or over confidence of the makers, the film has an after scene hinting at the sequel!