Subhash Ghai returns on screen after over 5 years through Mukta Searchlight's production of "36 Farmhouse", now streaming on Zee5. This venture of his first OTT release is directed by Ram Ramesh Sharma for a story written by Ghai, once called the greatest showman, and dialogues written by Sharad Tripathi. The story relates to a dysfunctional family and an event at this idyllic bungalow called 36 Farmhouse, somewhere in the outskirts of Mumbai during the 2020 lockdown period.
36 Farmhouse features Madhuri Bhatia as the ailing owner of the property living there with her eldest son played by Vijay Raaz and a bunch of staff for the maintenance and upkeep of the farmhouse. There's also a housekeeper played by Ashwini Kalsekar. The backdrop is that the property will pass into the sole ownership of the eldest son, an insolvent and broken individual, depriving the other heirs to it upon the mother's death. The younger brothers appointed a lawyer to meet the mother and drive better sense into her, but his very suggestion to do so on a rainy night to the eldest son meets with indignation and violence. The lawyer is bludgeoned and hurled into a well within the premises and left for dead without a trace. Over the next 48 hours, there is a flurry of strangers into the farmhouse, one seeking employment as a chef and another as a fashion designer who turn into residents on a heap of lies. Here onwards, there's a plot to steal some jewellery, another to blossom romance and a third to make the matriarch change her mind on her will to bequeath the property, all at play simultaneously with the central theme of a murder investigation.
Consequently, 36 Farmhouse is dealing with many genres at a time - comedy, murder mystery, romance, social issues and the fallout of lockdown on the migrant workers, spreading itself wafer thin in every segment. None of the issues creates any impression as it remains explored just on the surface, lacking depth. The comedy isn't credible, the murder mystery results in an uninteresting and convoluted plot, the romance is flat, the theft of jewellery is extraneous to the whole story, and the plight of the migrant workers is just a backdrop. As such, the 109 minute film doesn't succeed in achieving anything really - Subhash Ghai seems to have lost his midas touch and we are likely to forget this venture as just another average film that we stumbled across.
36 Farmhouse features Madhuri Bhatia as the ailing owner of the property living there with her eldest son played by Vijay Raaz and a bunch of staff for the maintenance and upkeep of the farmhouse. There's also a housekeeper played by Ashwini Kalsekar. The backdrop is that the property will pass into the sole ownership of the eldest son, an insolvent and broken individual, depriving the other heirs to it upon the mother's death. The younger brothers appointed a lawyer to meet the mother and drive better sense into her, but his very suggestion to do so on a rainy night to the eldest son meets with indignation and violence. The lawyer is bludgeoned and hurled into a well within the premises and left for dead without a trace. Over the next 48 hours, there is a flurry of strangers into the farmhouse, one seeking employment as a chef and another as a fashion designer who turn into residents on a heap of lies. Here onwards, there's a plot to steal some jewellery, another to blossom romance and a third to make the matriarch change her mind on her will to bequeath the property, all at play simultaneously with the central theme of a murder investigation.
Consequently, 36 Farmhouse is dealing with many genres at a time - comedy, murder mystery, romance, social issues and the fallout of lockdown on the migrant workers, spreading itself wafer thin in every segment. None of the issues creates any impression as it remains explored just on the surface, lacking depth. The comedy isn't credible, the murder mystery results in an uninteresting and convoluted plot, the romance is flat, the theft of jewellery is extraneous to the whole story, and the plight of the migrant workers is just a backdrop. As such, the 109 minute film doesn't succeed in achieving anything really - Subhash Ghai seems to have lost his midas touch and we are likely to forget this venture as just another average film that we stumbled across.