OMG – Oh My God! (2012) and OMG 2 have one common actor in them Akshay Kumar who plays God, Himself! The only difference being that in the first he plays Krishna, and in the second he plays avatar of Shiva.
Both the movies get out moral-technical questions to court wherein both the main leads fought for justice and honour. I think the format for these movies was excellent and mainly fought by actor who were not atypical commercial heroes. The movie was shouldered by the second important characters who become a sort of hero of the moment post victory of the case, and the social question is partially answered.
Within and Without Court
Given my interest in Law and Court scenes, maybe it was all because of Portia who comes to mind from the Shakespearean play, ‘The Merchant of Venice.’ “You shall have one pound of Antonio’s heart; but then, not a single drop of blood should drop.” Man, Portia floored it in that court room. That kind of debate is worth in gold!
I would say Paresh Rawal (played Kanji bhai) and Pankaj Tripathi (played Kanthi bhai) the roles were unique since the former was an atheist and latter was a devout baktha of Shiva. But these stories were about our mega serial series cultural heritage of India stating, ‘Gods go beyond human expectations.’
The court scenes were incredible because both hit the books and prepared for their cases which they self-manhandled of course with some help from up above. The Judge and jury of both the cases were interesting people. Mithun dada rocked the rollercoaster the best possible way in the 2012 movie and in the 2023 Pavan Malhotra subtly played it. I saw such maturity in the previous version and the fire of Paresh Rawal’s acting cannot be beaten. The part of Akshay and Paresh’s comic timing could be due to the factor of their comfort working together over many comedy movies previously.
In the case of Pankaj Tripathi, he is an actor of subtleness and the role played by Geeta Agarwal as the wife of Kanti, as a pair both were excellent together. The young adult actors for their roles did a great job and it was just-acting not jest-acting. Kudos aythura (Korean for guys and gals)!
Moratorium of Morals Happen for Higher Good!
I watched this movie last night wondering what it could be this time. Give me a court-based movie, I can binge watch endlessly! I am enjoying myself writing two blog posts in a day. All the difficulties of being in a sickly bed with health brushed under the carpet, I am binge writing, now! I wanted to write this review yesterday immediately after watching the movie, but my focus clock told me in no uncertain terms that it was my sleep time.
Anyway, it was Shivarathri of course, I was not doing garba, but my mind played different possibilities in my inner vision. That is when I realised that my previous blog site post on Sex Education didn’t even hold water to the impact of this movie. Kudos Team OMG2!! It was such an incredible court room with a teeny tinny bit of R K Narayana feel to it. Of course, if it was movie script of R K Narayana then, he would have left the Kachori eaters in the courtrooms on the very first day. But the very premises of the court case is made to seem like a ludicrous one because no one can give back the pride of the social media shamed person. It is only when they self-reflect and understand the situation internally that gives the whole new perspective to online social shaming.
Focused Social Issue, Faced with Unrelenting Intensity
I was very happy when the moviemakers did not stir the issue to social media rant. But the crux of the issue was given prime time viewership. Pankaj Tripathi excelled in the court room and using a female lawyer as opposition, was fantastic move in the plot. Yami Gautam was superlative mix of condescending and yet willing to play and to capture. Wherever, she found weakness in the witness then, she would be a pouncing tigress to undermine their attitude. The court room itself excelled as a character.
As in the previous movie OMG – Oh My God! and the current new one of OMG2 social issue remained and were argumentatively resolved. But where the actual society is going to take it remains to be “yet to be seen.” When the character of Yami faced the situation of not being aware of the pure Hindi’s expressions used in ancient text to describe a desirable woman, even I felt it was a compliment and was taken aback that even I would have reacted like the female lawyer and been clueless to the actual import.
I think language is beautiful which ever language it may be there are some neat phrases and clauses which play into our refined understanding of life. I think sometime back I had a blog post about sex education at school and a proper teacher being able to stir the minds of the young one without shaming the act all together. When something is hidden in shame and secrecy then expecting the growing adolescent to uphold great moral character when hypocritically viewing and sharing things cannot be done.
A United Social Task for Making Simple Effective Influences
Young adults’ minds are impressionable and movie such as these need to be viewed as a family and post viewing there should be discussion about the central theme – in the second movies case Sex Education at School – Should or Shouldn’t Be? That is the Hamletian question. Not “To Be or Not to Be” which not relevant at this point because our children are growing at the rapid pace to keep up with the Information Highway’s exploits into the young minds.
The damage is already done what and where are the corrective steps in our approach to such wide berth questions should be, the needful question of the hour! As in the movie, Lord Shiva who was a catalyst gave an instigation and left the humans with non-miraculous just ordinariness to deal with the remaining part of the issue. The right angle for the issue at hand is yet to be discovered. A movie can only go that far, beyond is the social change that should be waiting to happen. It will take time for the individuals to catchup, but if persistent effort is put forth then, change is not far!
In that way, both movies did great service to open perspectives and perceptions among the viewing audience. Now that, all that needs to be done to awaken public awareness is done, now the baton moves on to the next person in the audience. Is that someone you?!!
Source for Watching Netflix
Itinerant Storyteller 