When I woke up this morning, little did I know that I was going to run into a dramatic time machine that would transport me back to the late ’80s and ’90s, courtesy of Scrap. The film is a remake of the Telugu film Middle Class Abboy, and stars Abhimanyu Dassani and Shilpa Shetty in the lead.
Abhimanyu plays the role of a ‘Nikamma’ Adi, who is pampered by his family and has no goals in life. His easy life takes a turn when his brother is married to a tough Avni, played by Shilpa Shetty. He decides to leave home and be with his extended family. But he is forced to return home and goes to Dhamali with his sister-in-law after her transfer. Adi’s comfortable life gets disturbed when she makes him do all the household chores. However, he escapes when he falls in love with Natasha aka Nikki, played by Shirley Setia. Incidentally, she is also Avni’s cousin. When she learns about their relationship, Avni separates them, which fuels her anger towards him.
As he decides to run away, he learns that Avni is not what she seems. He realizes how she is protecting him at the moment and only wants to help him ‘settle in life’.
While he is making a revelation, Avni, a goon-turned-politician, is determined to kill him. Adi takes it upon himself to defend her against the goons and, in the process, tries to prove that he is not all that useless.
Shame is as over-the-top as it can get. Touted as an action-comedy, the film lacked comedy and was, instead, full of corny dialogues, which I felt we had left behind in the past decade. Abhimanyu Singh, who plays the villain, enters a Stranger Things genre and drops lines like “Who tries to win me, he loses his life” to instill fear. Abhimanyu Dasani is also given some unfortunate lines to match his maize.
The lines go so far south that some of us sitting in the theater burst out loud in some of the most grim scenes.
The writing in the first half is also uneven, with new sub plots wrapped up properly in the first half even before the previous ones. However, with the story streamlining, things start to turn out in the second half.
Nikamma has been helmed by Sabbir Khan, the director of films like Heropanti, Baaghi and Munna Michael. Like his previous films, Nikamma is also filled with Abhimanyu’s screaming, punching and channeling the hero avatar. While Tiger Shroff had managed to turn the hero avatar for Sabbir in the past, Abhimanyu doesn’t fit the mould.
While he shows he may be a typical hero from the ’90s, he feels a little out of place in Avatar. The actor, who gave unparalleled performances alongside Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota and Meenakshi Sundareswarar, offered something we haven’t seen before. While it is understandable that Abhimanyu would want to attempt a bigger film, it just didn’t look right. Still, Shilpa’s love-hate relationship with Avni shows that he can develop a chemistry with any star cast opposite him.
Shirley Setia has unfortunately been reduced to a pretty face with an infectious smile. The surprise package is undoubtedly from Shilpa Shetty. The actress did a decent job in the first half, giving Abhimanyu every chance to experiment and win over the audience. However, she moves like a lioness in the second half and mostly eats the climax.
The waste is overwhelming. If not for theatrical release, I’d film on a boring afternoon when I want a goofy movie playing in the background.
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