Mumbai Express

Thoroughly enjoyable movie. I especially appreciated the acting of Kamal Hassan which reminded me of one of the very old French movie about the kidnapping of a child done by French comic Fernandel. It is especially tough to play a dummy, it takes more intelligence to play a fool. I have been to India on a few occasions, in Tamil Nadu, for work on AIDS with the MGR University, and this movie reminded me of everything I found charming and everything I found exhilarating or unbearable in India, such as the bureaucrats, quite as bad as the French bureaucrats. There is nothing profound in the movie, why should there be? It's just enjoyable all the way through and I am a real fan of funny movies. Seems to me that's often the best way to reflect back on life. Best is that it's a good slice of life in India. Like the international bestseller book "Shantakaram" the Australian (G.D.Roberts) bestseller, in a different register, since it is both adventurous, lively, and a good painting of Indian life.

Don't expect too much out of this film. It's nice to see a simple comedy after all the intense movies that have been coming out in 2005. I would probably put this movie into the genre of Hera Pheri and Hungama. Although not nearly as great as those two, Mumbai Express is another comedy of mistaken identities that most definitely has its share of hilarious scenes and dialogues. Kamal Hassan, the lady that played his sister, and Om Puri all gave wonderful performances. Manisha Koirala was OK. There's not a whole lot to the story. It's just full of fun-filled humor. The movie is great to loosen up on a Friday night after a long week.

Masterminded by Digambar (Vijay Raaz) a perfect plan is drawn - kidnap the rich builder Mehta's (Saurabh Shukla) son and make easy money. Owing to turn of events, Avinash aka Mumbai Xpress (Kamal Hassan) becomes a part of the plan. However wrong child is kidnapped instead who happens to be ACP's (Om Puri) son. And that's just the beginning of comedy of errors.

Kamal's character was not fleshed out well. He appears to be too good a Samaritan to get involved in the kidnapping project. Inspite of the hurdles, he still takes the initiative to move the project ahead. His voice-over was not too appealing as well (wonder he did it himself!). Plus he needs to trim himself big time. His getup isn't appealing at all.

Action sequences are handled well. Background score has a heavy influence of the South hence wouldn't appeal to the rest of the audience of India, otherwise the songs are passable. In Chachi 420, Gulzar was chosen for lyrics, I wonder if he was deliberately skipped this time around.

It obvious that Singeetham Srinivas Rao has lost his midas touch and after a point gets lost in narration. The situations does evoke some good laughs. Otherwise the story has a lot of loose ends.

The ACP's role by Om Puri could have been astute rather than having a comic touch. Pratima Kazmi is okay. Wonder why ex-bar girl now single-mother Manisha is portrayed as gluttony yet Kamal decides to accept her.

I watched this movie for Kamal but it was Vijay Raaz who steals the limelight.

One of most unnoticed classic comedy, Even though the film won good reviews, the cinematography had been done experimentally with a digital movie camera and mainly due to the digital film implementation resulting in a slight dark output which left the viewer uneasy. The film, although widely considered a loss, was a great success technology-wise in the Indian cinema industry.

The National Award-winning critic Baradwaj Rangan praised the movie in his review as "one of Kamal Haasan's most tight-knit, most convoluted screenplays, where every pratfall, every pun, every preposterous moment seems to have been spat on, polished, and precisely positioned into an overall jigsaw pattern". He added that "Mumbai Xpress isn't exactly an all-out comedy. Like Pushpak, it's the blues with belly laughs, a stack of serious issues coated with smiles."

Excellent Movie. Everybody acted good in the movie. Songs and BGM in the movie were not so good. The comedy scenes in the movie were hilarious. This movie is one of the Best Movie of Kamal Haasan. The movie did not lagged or bored at all. Excellent Movie.