Maza Algaar review: Sloppy story, acting and continuity drowns this revenge drama

Before the start of every good or bad film and after the interval, the Indian audience is forced to watch two anti-smoking advertisements featuring  former Indian cricketer Rahul Dravid. Even those who admire the legendary cricketer find it difficult to sit through the the ads.

But then, there comes a film like Millind Raghunath Kamble’s Maza Algaar, which in comparison makes these anti-smoking advertisements look more convincing and entertaining.

In other words, this is yet another Marathi film this year that makes us wonder why it was made in the first place. The bigger problem is that it doesn’t make you laugh like the other Marathi film of the week, Chhand Priticha.  

Maza Algaar revolves in a small village in Maharashtra. Mukta (Aishwarya Rajesh) hails from a poor family and stays with her parents. Her friend and neighbour Manya secretly loves her.

Mukta studies in a school run by a spiritual leader (Swapnil Rajshekhar) who is a mahatma in the eyes of the villagers but in reality can be called an avatar of the devil himself. One day, on the pretext of a quiz competition, he intoxicates a number of school girls and lets men rape them in exchange for money.

Years later, an adult Mukta returns to the village to take revenge. 

It doesn’t take you long to realize that the screenplay is wayward. But as the film progresses (if it can be called that), the issues keep on increasing.

With things like conviction and sensibility being miles away, both in terms of the presentation and performances, it is easy to make out how substandard the film is. It seems they just went ahead with the theme without giving any regard to writing, presentation or performances. 

The biggest thorn in the neck here comes in the most important portion of the film — when the spiritual leader commits the heinous crime. Try to fathom this — he asks some selected female students to come for a competition late in the evening. The woman working under him forcefully intoxicates them, but the manner in which she forces them to drink makes you laugh rather than getting worried. Few girls in the scene are seen laughing when they are supposed to be crying. 

As the girls get intoxicated, the woman lets the ‘customers’ enter the classroom to rape them. If this isn’t enough, the priest kills Mukta’s father and a couple of other social workers who come to the rescue. However, we are just not told how he covered up such a serious crime as the story abruptly takes a leap of 15 years. Mukta’s return to the village and the manner of her revenge makes those silly dubbed south Indian films appear like masterpieces. 

The film has some areas that speak a lot about its absurdity:

- In a couple of sequences, the time on the clock changes as per the camera angle in the same scene. For example, in an office scene, the time is 5.35 but it changes to 5:30 when the camera zooms in. 

- A character slits the throat of a man. But the weapon only has few drops of blood. In another violent scene, a man dies on the spot after a weapon gives him little more than a scratch.

- A social worker wanted to thank a group of villagers for turning up for a meeting she called. But instead she ends up congratulating them.

Coming to the performances, Aishwarya Rajesh (not to be confused with the south Indian actress, Aishwarya Rajesh) tries too hard to perform, but she does possess some acting skills. This is not the right film to showcase it, though.

Swapnil Rajshekhar, as the evil priest, is the best of the lot. Needless to say, he deserves better films.

Yash Kadam, as Aishwarya’s love interest, and the guy who plays his younger version, struggle to act. 

Finally, the challenge to sit through Maza Algaar is bigger than mission taken up by the protagonist in the film. The film is getter a star just because we do not have a provision for a lesser rating.