Kisaan Review

Kisaan is no social studies chapter. It is like a photocopy of one - a photocpy that has been scribbled all over with meaningless tripe, and whose pages after Page 2 have been ripped away. All you have left to stare at are someone's doodles.

Kisaan all about farmers and ketchup and fake beards. It starts out with an illiterate Dayal Singh (Jackie Shroff, who looks sorry indeed to be a part of this) sending away one of his two sons to study in the city. The idea, according to a well-wisher, is to have at least one educated person in the family, so that Dayal Singh can rule the world. Well, you should start with reading scripts before you sign, first. Or at least, with reading timings for the next bus to Timbuktu.

Anyway, later, Dayal Singh realizes this was a huge mistake, because his real asset is Jigar (Sohail Khan), the son who's brought up on the lassi-plough-fertilizer combination, and who's a beefcake. Aman (Arbaaz Khan), the city-bred mild-mannered boy, proves to be a complete disappointment, mainly because he hasn't specialized in butchery

Now there is this business tycoon Sohan (Dalip Tahil), who has major plans of building a commercial venture in place of the agricultural land, and compensating the villagers suitably. When Dayal Singh vehemently goes against the proposal, one of Sohan's flunkies from the village slaps him. Aman quickly gets to work on a lawsuit, but Jigar decides to make sure it will never happen again. He chops off the villain's hand - this way, Singh won't get slapped by the same hand at least.

Sohan's idea of strategy is to split Dayal Singh's family into 2. Dayal Singh deals with his enemies the same way, except that his thinking is more horizontal in nature. Anyway, towards the end of the film, you actually start seeing double of everything. Maybe because you've just woken up.

Kisaan's fancy for farmers lasts only as long as it lays out the problem. The solution involves absolutely no brains - it's just a few men wielding the sharpest thing lying in their homes, out to get those who wronged them. There is nothing in the film that works. The writing seems juvenile, the accents are unconvincing, the songs irk, and there's more.

The closing credits symbolize the vacuousness of the film's supposed tribute to farmers - they feature the cast of Kisaan dressed in party wear and jiving to Daler Mehndi's remix of an iconic patrioic song. It's not offensive at all - it's just plain silly.

Jackie Shroff looks tired, Dia Mirza lends a bit of charm, and the Khans scowl their way to the end. No one in the cast performs well. There are too many who can't act, and the ones who can - they make no effort.

Apart from some old-hat Punjabi tunes here and there, there's absolutely nothing notable in the music department, leave alone vibrancy. Exactly the same thing can be said about the visuals.

So it's pretty clear, we assume - miss Kisaan.