Humble Politician Nograj movie review: A laughing stock

Director: Saad Khan
Cast: Danish Sait, Sumukhi Suresh, Vijay Chendur, Roger Narayan, Sruthi Hariharan
Rating: 2 stars

Though certified as Kannada movie, in a true sense this is neither an English nor Kannada venture. In fact, it is made in a “punny” language with utterly bad grammar too. Jokes apart, Humble Politician Nograj makes a satirical effort to focus on the sad state of affairs in our present democratic set-up, which is corrupt politicians.

When comedy gets involved with politics, the pun obviously gets doubled. When talents like Danish Sait team up with Saad Khan, expectations are always high. But, this one fails to sustain the real fun as it heavily “concentrates” and revolves around the English speaking skills of the protagonist filled with grammatical errors. Based on the characters etched by Danish Sait himself, he plays the protagonist —Nograj, a corrupt corporator who calls himself humble. While the tale does highlight the practices of corrupt politicians to some extent and their schemes and scams to stay in power, it is the senseless portrayal of characters which spoils the fun. Apart from Nograj, none of the other characters are fully developed. Nograj along with his personal secretary played by Vijay Chendur manage to irritate with their deplorable English-speaking skills. The mannerism could have been used wisely but the general outcome is a bit too much to digest.

One would expect a former NRI returning to his hometown to know proper Kannada, but Nograj is simply pathetic, in his ooru’s tongue, and the English language. The so-called satire takes a turn when a local MLA humiliates him. He now aims to contest in the legislative assembly. Thereafter, Humble faces real humble competition when Roger Narayan, a former NRI decides to bring a change and contest the elections. Will Nograj finally get elected as MLA thanks to his dirty tricks and maligning of the opponent? That is the crux of this cliched tale! While a section of the audience might enjoy the language thanks to its errors and pun-intended, Nograj is not “reely” humble, and just another corrupt politician who does nothing but give false assurances.