Saare Jahaan Se Mehnga Movie Review: Inflation Gets Funny!

Saare Jahaan Se Mehnga Movie Review-In Short: A middle-class family takes a government loan meant for unemployed youth to stock up on groceries in light of rising prices and inflation, with hilarious consequences.

Saare Jahaan Se Mehnga Movie Review-Verdict: A satirical take on inflation and the helplessness of the middle class, this movie is a pretty decent fare.

Saare Jahaan Se Mehnga Movie Review-Story Plot: Puttanpal (Sanjay Mishra) is a middle class government employee, who stays with his old father Nagpal (Vishwa Mohan Badola), wife Noori (Pragati Pandey) and 'good for nothing' younger brother Gopal (Ranjan Chhabra) in a small village in Haryana.

When the family gets distraught over the rising prices of day to day commodities, Puttan comes up with the idea of securing a government loan meant for unemployed youth/budding entrepreneurs and using the money to stock up on groceries to last for atleast a couple of years, so that the rising prices won’t affect them.

What seems like a brilliant idea at first, lands them in trouble when a nosy loan inspector Singh (Zakir Hussain) starts sniffing around suspiciously. To convince him that they have indeed taken the loan to open up a grocery shop, the family now has to come up with an elaborate charade-with a fake shop and fake customers!

Saare Jahaan Se Mehnga Movie Review-Performances: Sanjay Mishra as the middle class Average Joe does a great job and so does Pragati Pandey, who plays his wife. Vishwa Mohan Badola as the crusty patriarch is a delight to watch, though we feel Ranjan could have done a better job. Zakir Hussain as the loan inspector too is decent enough.

Saare Jahaan Se Mehnga Movie Review-Direction: Though the movie starts off at a slow pace, it does pick up momentum and gets to the point. The humour is wry and effective and the dialogues are witty. Due credit goes to the director for taking a serious subject like inflation and rising prices and looking at it in a light-hearted manner (except for the last 20 minutes, which gets a tad melodramatic and preachy). However, on the flip side, the logic of stocking up on perishable goods with a view to have enough for two years, seems a bit far-fetched.

Saare Jahaan Se Mehnga Movie Review-Final Word: Don’t be discouraged by the lack of stars in the film…if light-hearted and wry humour is your cup of tea, give Saare Jahaan Se Mehnga a chance.