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Movie Review: Club 60 is made with pure genuineness

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Cast: Farooque Sheikh, Sarika, Raghubir Yadav, Satish Shah, Tinnu Anand, Sharat Saxena, Vineet Kumar, Viju Khote, Himani Shivpuri, Zarina Wahab, Suhasini Mulay
Director: Sanjay Tripathy
Faheem Ruhani’s Rating: 4 Star Rating: Recommended4 Star Rating: Recommended4 Star Rating: Recommended.

Buddha hoga tera baap!

Chances are that if there wasn’t already a recent film by the same title (starring Amitabh Bachchan), director Sanjay Tripathy could have easily called his directorial debut Club 60 by the same name. The five sexagenarians (Raghubir Yadav, Satish Shah, Tinnu Anand, Sharat Saxena, Vineet Kumar) in this film claim loud and clear, ‘we are not old, God-fearing, boring people who have taken a backseat in the ride of life.’ They want to tell you that they are proud, sexy senior citizens. Let’s correct that further. They, in fact are saying we are 60 but feel sexy like 16-year-olds. Such is their passion and zest to live life to the fullest.

At the centre of this story is protagonist, Dr Tariq Sheikh (Farooque Sheikh), a non-practising neurosurgeon from Pune who has just moved to Mumbai. Tariq and his younger wife Dr Saira (Sarika) are struggling to cope with the untimely death of their only son in the US in an accident. While Saira is able to somehow find the strength to face life by joining a hospital in Mumbai, Tariq’s acute depression threatens to destroy him and also his married life, which is on the brink of losing its spark. Enter Manu Bhai Shah, their 12th floor neighbour, who invites himself over in their house to eat aloo parathas. Manu Bhai, with his obnoxious attire and loud talk is the exact antithesis of everything that the Sheikh’s represent. Yet, in the words of Dr Tariq, it is “this impudent, imposing joker” who brings about a change in their life that even Dr Tariq’s shrink (Harsh Chhaya) cannot.

How Manu Bhai gets Dr Tariq to meet the other five sexagenarians of Club 60 forms the rest of the film. As the film progresses, the narrative unfolds to reveal the stories and the lives of all five. You must be thinking, ‘Oh no, sad stories told sadly!’ Thankfully, it is not Tripathy’s endeavour to be preachy or boring. He spins a fun, mirthful, peppered-with-bawdy jokes narrative to tell you more about each of them. In the process telling you that life is worth living in the worst of adversities.

The effort is sincere and effective and based on true-life characters the director encountered during his many, early morning tennis sessions at National Sports Club of India, Mumbai. He is tremendously aided in the story-telling with a talented cast without which this film could have gone downhill. The writing is simple, clear and light. Where required there are witty jokes weaved in without making it seem too forced. It has got a couple of good songs, while the others seem unnecessary. The song hum Yunh bhi waah waah, is foot-tapping. Now when was the last time you saw 60-year-olds dancing at another 60-year-old’s bachelor party?

Farooque Sheikh and Sarika are both brilliantly cast as grieving parents. Both bring to their role an honesty, maturity and even a degree of restraint that is just right. Satish Shah is immensely likeable as the Sindhi broker. Sharat Saxena and Tinnu Anand, used to playing badly written, unrealistic negative roles in mainstream films get to show that they can play real characters like a mature hand. Vineet Kumar is memorable as the bad-jokes raconteur. Raghubir Yadav succeeds in being irritating, pain-in-the-arse neighbour you would never want to have. Suhasini Mulay, Harsh Chhaya and Zarina Wahab lend able support in their brief but effective roles.

The otherwise well-intentioned film is slightly marred by its length. The 137 minutes-long film could have easily been tighter, done away with a few songs and cut short the rather longish voiceover by Farooque Sheikh in the beginning. The climax in which Dr. Tariq is forced to report in the operation room is not easy to digest.Yet, the genuineness with which Club 60 has been made outweighs its few flaws.

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