Chandra's world

Munnabhai MBBS - a cult classic ?

This hilarious movie hit the theaters sometime in December 2003. It took some time for the movie to gain momentum and then by the sheer power of word of mouth, became a blockbuster hit. You can read the review of the movie here.

To state it simply, this movie was a heartwarming comedy with the right emotional touches. The makers of the movie initially thought of SRK in the title role! Whatever be the merits or demerits of the idea, Sanjay Dutt gave an unforgettable performance, a performance that he will rank as one of his finest in his long career ( I personally believe that his best performance to date was in “Naam” ). Also, Boman Irani a.ka. Mamu and Arshad Warsi a.k.a. Circuit stole the show with their performances.

This movie is in the news again with remakes being made in the three southern languages, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu. The top actors down south, Upendra, Kamal Hassan and Chiranjeevi are doing the honors by donning the title role in the respective languages. It also hogged attention for the fact that The British Medical Journal reviewed it! All this made The Hindu wonder as to whether this movie can be called a cult classic. And according to this article, the answer is in the affirmative.

However, I do have my reservations about this. No doubt, its a wonderful feel good movie, a hugely successful movie, but is it a classic? For a movie to be called a classic, the basic requirement it should satisfy is a timeless repeat value. You should be able to watch the movie some n number of times without getting bored at all. I don’t quite think that Munnabhai MBBS measures up to it. Anyway, the jury is still out on it and for the time being the cinegoers down south can get ready for a rich feast that will be served to them very soon!