36 Farmhouse (2022) Review!!

Synopsis – In this ZEE5 original film, a father and son duo enter a farmhouse with ulterior motives. However, they soon learn of a bigger plot brewing within the farmhouse orchestrated by their rich masters.

My Take – Hailed as ‘Showman’ because of his notable brand of blockbusters released across the 80s and 90s, once upon a time filmmaker Subhash Ghai was a brand everyone in the Hindi film industry wanted to be associated to. With directorial ventures like Kalicharan, Vishwanath, Karz, Vidhaata, Hero, Meri Jung, Karma, Ram Lakhan, Saudagar, Khalnayak, Pardes and Taal (his last directorial hit) under him, Subhash Ghai‘s profile was never short of variety and richness.

However, with the new millennium kicking in his brand of Hindi cinema started failing too, as both his output as a director and producer began churning out only appalling and shoddy products, with the exception of a few production ventures like Aitraaz, Iqbal, 36 China Town and Apna Sapna Money Money, finding some form of critical and commercial success.

For his OTT debut, which sees Ram Ramesh Sharma take up the directorial reins, Ghai return as producer, writer and music director to back a feature which sounds like a sequel to 36 Chinatown, but is instead a mash-up of genres, that range from being a murder mystery, comedy and family drama, all the while as it aims to explore a range of emotions, from greed to class disparity.

Unfortunately, the final results are quite worse than one could have expected, as apart from a few instances of humor, nothing else works here. For its entirety of its 107-minute runtime the film stand on shaky ground, as Subhash Ghai’s script combines the outlines and themes of the Oscar nominated Knives Out (2019) and the Oscar winning Parasite (2019), but also strips them of very elements that made them so successful, leaving behind a disjointed mediocre effort.

And while the veteran filmmaker continues his practice of making a Hitchcockian cameo, he leaves director Ram Ramesh Sharma and the talented cast with nothing to save the film, as even the film’s subplots are not executed in a compelling or satirically amusing manner. Making this one yet another of those sad cases of an aging giant still trying to stay relevant.

Set in the early days of India’s first COVID-related lockdown in 2020, around the time migrant workers were forced to walk hundreds of kilometers back to their villages, the story follows Jai Prakash aka JP (Sanjay Mishra) and his son, Harry (Amol Parashar) who through different instances manage to find themselves employed at 36 Farmhouse, an opulent mansion on Mumbai’s outskirts, under occupations they’re not suited to undertake. JP as Chef working under the house maiden, Benny (Ashwini Kalsekar) and Harry as an assistant to Antara (Barkha Singh), a fashion designer.

Unknowingly by doing so the two find themselves embroiled in the turmoil going on in the affluent family. Rising mainly out of Padmini Raj Singh (Madhuri Bhatia), Antara’s grandmother and the family matriarch’s decision to turn the property solely to her eldest son Raunak (Vijay Raaz), who lives with her.

Hereby causing the rest of the family, particularly her second son, a filthy affluent Gajender (Rahul Singh), and her youngest son’s wife Mithika (Flora Saini), to believe that Raunak emotionally manipulated her into doing so. And with a police turning up to locate a missing lawyer who apparently carried a new draft of the will, things only get messier.

Through comic relief and the behind-the-scenes machinations of the family, ZEE5’s latest Hindi feature, a purported comedy-drama, never quite gets its tone right and falls flat from start to finish. Story wise, the film hardly has any meat to keep you engaged.

Yes, there’s a twist at the end, but that hardly makes up for the otherwise boring story. The only mystery is what merit did the makers see in this lethargic script, and the joke is the fact that something as silly and disposable got made.

In what appears to be the central theme, the film repeatedly showcases the magnitudes of difference between desperate essential workers stealing jewels and disgruntled heirs conspiring in violence and intimidation, with constant references to the ongoing pandemic. Yet as a writer Ghai barely scratches the surface.

Apart from using a few seconds of actual footage from the news featuring real-life migrant workers at the beginning of the film, he hardly offers anything to let the viewers believe that Harry and JP are similar workers rendered unemployed. In fact, it indulges in this angle so much that it gets on your nerve. We also get an extremely humdrum dive into the relationship between the rich Antara and the poor Harry, but like the rest of the points in the film, that goes nowhere either.

Here, the veteran filmmaker, also makes his debut as a music composer and lyricist. Sadly, both tracks belong to another era.

Performance wise, Sanjay Mishra walks away with the biggest piece of the cake. His comic timing is spot on, and he makes JP the most memorable of the film. Coming in close is web series star Amol Parashar who works his familiar charm well. Vijay Raaz is pleasantly convincing in his role, while Madhuri Bhatia delivers a sincere performance in her portrayal of a family matriarch who wants her family to love her more than her money.

Barkha Singh also does well and shares an endearing chemistry with Parashar. Ashwini Kalsekar is fun to watch, while both Rahul Singh and Flora Saini manage to contribute well in their limited roles. On the whole, ’36 Farmhouse’ is a forgettable comedy-thriller backed by an atrocious script.