Producer: Kanchan Adhikari & Om Gahlot
Director: Kanchan Adhikari
Star Cast: Subodh Bhave, Kranti Redkar, Avishkar Darwhekar, Priya Marathe & Namrata Awate
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Of late Marathi Cinema is really coming of age for trying out different genres of filmmaking. Gone are the rural lavni’s & tamasha days. In the same vein director Kanchan Adhikari’s Kiran Kulkarni Vs Kiran Kulkarni is a zara hatke triangular romantic comedy drama.
The scripted scenario of Kiran Kulkarni Vs Kiran Kulkarni unfolds with Kiran Kulkarni (Subodh Bhave) who is a successful employee of an IIT Company and is about to join his Company’s Germany branch. Just then he becomes a victim of a credit card fraud, due to the lapse of his wife, and gets framed for a murder too in a Pub as his Credit card was traced over there. Needless to say he looses his job & his Germany trip too. So his immediate boss (Mohan Joshi) advises him to catch the culprit redhanded. Kiran goes to Lonavala and bumps into the credit card fraud girl Kasturi (Kranti Redkar). From here on the story of Kiran Kulkarni Vs Kiran Kulkarni takes a whole new twist.
As the title Kiran Kulkarni Vs Kiran Kulkarni hints it is not at all a courtroom drama at all. On the contrary the film starts off with a credit card fraud but somewhere along the way director Kanchan Adhikari focuses more on the heart touching romantic triangle. Being a woman director Kanchan Adhikari seems a little biased as she has given an author backed role to her lead heroine Kranti Redkar thereby not really using the overall potential of an extremely talented and gifted actor like Subodh Bhave who has already proven his versatility in films like Katyar Kaljhat Ghusli to name just one.
Performance wise Kiran Kulkarni Vs Kiran Kulkarni is no doubt a Kranti Redkar film all the way. As Kasturi she is genuine, she is funny, she is witty and a little filmy too. Her comic timing is just seen to be believed. In fact she has delivered a par excellence act. Next in line is of course Subodh Bhave who is simply outstanding in the title role of Kiran Kulkarni. And the actress who enacts the role of his wife is good but she hardly gets a scope to prove her worth. Rest of the characters are ok and they do contribute in carrying the film forward.
In the end one can only say that Kiran Kulkarni Vs Kiran Kulkarni is a full on non – stop entertaining film for the masses as well as the classes. After a long, long time Kiran Kulkarni Vs Kiran Kulkarni is a clean and wholesome family entertainer.
