What Is the Story About?
Voot Select’s new original series ‘The Great Weddings Of Munnes‘ centres on an honest, hardworking, kind-hearted young man, Munnes (Abhishek Banerjee), who is rejected by every girl he proposes marriage to. His paths cross with rich and pretty Mahi (Barkha Singh), who falls in love with him due to his honesty and kindheartedness. When things are about to fall into place for Munnes, his ‘kundali’ plays spoilsport. It turns out that in order to lead a happily married life with Mahi, Munnes must first marry and divorce another girl. Thus begins the hunt for a suitable one-day bride for Munnes.
The Great Weddings Of Munnes is produced, created and co-written by Raaj Shaandilyaa, and directed by Sunil Subramani.
Performances?
Abhishek Banerjee is the only good part of ‘The Great Weddings Of Munnes’ in the performance department. Not once does the talented actor allow the far-fetched sub-plots to affect his performance. He remains natural, unaffected and convincing in the most absurd of situations, even when everyone around him is hamming it to the hilt.
Barkha Singh is barely convincing in her role of a love-lorn woman. She seems to be just going through the motions, with zero impact or credence. It is a poor casting choice that affects the believability of the story. Sunita Chand Rajwar, as the bumbling bua; Paresh Ganatra as the gambling-loving Phupha; Sunil Chitkara, as the eternally pessimistic tauji; Pankaj Dheer as Mahi’s grandfather; Pankaj Berry as the curt Muniji; Aakash Dabhade as Munnes’ friend Suresh, Chetan Sharma as Munnes’ aspiring influencer cousin; all come across as weird caricatures – bland and uninteresting.
Analysis
The Great Weddings Of Munnes is a classic case of a story that looks great on paper, but falls flat in execution. A beleaguered bridegroom-to-be, whose wedding is hijacked by fate after completing ‘3 & 1/2 pheras’ with his lady love, criss-crosses the length and breadth of the country — baraatis and pandit in tow — searching high and low for an alternate bride. Yes, the premise, with its myriad subplots, sounds hilarious when read off a written script.
But no sooner is the script translated on to the screen, and it becomes obvious that that same script needed a ruthless hand to execute it, chop off the bloated bits, trim the excess flab. Coz flabby it definitely is. The series goes on and on for ten, 22-35-minute-long, tedious episodes, when the story could very easily have been told in five crisp episodes.
And therein lies the downfall of ‘The Great Weddings Of Munnes’. It is simply too long, and not funny a show to spend so much time on; especially in today’s world of short attention spans and shorter patience levels.
But the length isn’t the only problem with the series. The humour is almost non-existent. After a while of watching the humourless story plod on, the silly subplots, cringey one-liners, meaningless gags begin to grate on the nerves. A couple of instances in the humongous runtime do elicit a few laughs. But the better part of watching the show is spent in marvelling at the utterly tone-deaf, crass humour of the story. The script does not shy away from taking pot-shots at even sensitive matters – Muslim culture, the naturally dark skin of native Africans, a divorcee with a kid – anything and everything is milked for laughs – even a poor old man’s paralysis. It is another matter that none of the above elicits even a smile, let alone laughs.
The only way one can watch ‘The Great Weddings Of Munnes’ to the end is by a constant, firmly-held finger on the fast-forward button.
Music and Other Departments?
The songs of ‘The Great Weddings Of Munnes’ are nice, though hardly the kind that will stick in memory for even a minute after the show ends. Editor Prakash Chandra Sahoo needed to have kept a tight hand with the editing to trim the flab, but alas he failed at the crucial job. The rest of the editing is fine. Chinmay Salaskar’s cinematography is about passable. He fails to capture the essence of any of the places that Munnes visits in the story – they all look the same.
Highlights?
None
Drawbacks?
Too long and flabby
Humour is non-existent
Characters are bland and uninteresting
Tone-deaf jokes add to the cringe factor
Did I Enjoy It?
No
Will You Recommend It?
No
The Great Weddings Of Munnes Series Review by Binged Bureau
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