Mom is an OK film and it is not as expected . It is an Ok film.It isn’t as if Sridevi, who returns after a sizeable gap after ‘English Vinglish’, can’t carry a film on her own. Short of her mannerisms, and pancake, Sridevi needs only a twitch or a glance to prove that she is a powerhouse, and there are several scenes she lifts by just being there.
The Mom director has given a overdoes of facts , and what could have been a taut thriller is reduced to being a showcase for Sridevi’s capabilities, which we are fully aware of already. It also leaves even someone as capable as Nawazudin struggling to overcome a spectacularly ugly hair-piece and a sketchily written part. He plays Detective DK, who is to be seen playing a wholly inexplicable game of hide-and-seek with Devki : why shouldn’t this client and sleuth meet in public?
The film side-steps this crucial question in its quest to do quirk. As the four perpetrators including a very vivid Abhimanyu Singh seem to be getting off scot-free, Devki takes it upon herself to take revenge. She gets going, and from then on, the improbabilities pile up.
Just how is a school biology teacher, for that is what Devki is, meant to know anything about breaking-and-entering, and other things involving larceny? The plot is distressingly vague about these details, and we are left muttering, just like poor Akshaye Khanna who shows up as a crime branch cop reaching the point post-facto.
Ther other good performances , apart from Nawaz and Abhimanyu. Sajal Ali, who plays the young victim, is particularly effective. Adnan Siddiqui, as Sridevi’s husband, is very dishy, but suffers from the same problem the rest of the cast : not enough heft.
The whole burden is left to Sridevi, and she goes all out. But she is made to do too much : too much widening of the eyes, too much narrowing of the mouth, and too many things we don’t really believe she can do.
Producer: Boney Kapoor and others
Music :Rahman
cast: Sridevi, Nawazudin Siddiqui, Akshaye Khanna,
director: Ravi Udyawar
Rating: 2.5/5
