Meerabai Not Out

It's a clear sign that a movie isn't working for you when you start looking at your watch. But when you start shaking your watch because you think it might have stopped, you know this film has failed.Meerabai Not Out is an excruciatingly slow-paced comedy about a cricket-obsessed school teacher, Meera, played by Mandira Bedi, whose as-yet-single status is blamed on the fact that nothing and no one gets her juices flowing the way the game does. Her middle-class family is committed to finding her an eligible groom, but because she can't seem to get her priorities sorted, it's become impossible to find a match for her. When she does meet her soul-mate eventually - a young doctor, played by television actor Eijaz Khan - and prepares to settle down with him, she finds herself confronted with the challenge of having to choose between love and cricket.Predictable every step of the way, Meerabai Not Out is the kind of film that expects you to sit patiently while the characters and the screenplay slowly arrive at the inevitable conclusion. What happens, and how and why, will be perfectly clear to any attentive viewer as soon as the plot lays down its tracks. Which is why the experience of watching this film unfold is similar to the pain that comes from pulling out your nostril hair one by one.There's a running joke in the film which involves random people telling Meera, our protagonist, that she resembles Mandira Bedi, to which she angrily responds that it's Mandira who resembles her and not the other way around. The punch-line to that self-deprecating joke is delivered by Meera again who says: "Aur main pure kapde pahenti hoon", meaning: "Unlike her, I am always fully dressed."This is possibly the only smart moment in this dumb, regressive film in which Meera's fate is left to the outcome of a cricket match between her brother and her fiancé.Anil Kumble makes a series of short appearances in this film as the object of Meera's crush; it's the kind of embarrassing cameo that the poor chap's not likely to live down in a hurry. This is a film that must be seen to be believed.But wait, that's too high a price to pay!

There is one, and only one cardinal mistake that Meerabai Not Out commits - it trivializes the national passion. Someone had a smart sounding idea of exploiting cricket as a plot device for a love story with the depth of half a soap episode. Mandira Bedi, after her sacrilegious cricket exploits on the small screen now does it on the silver screen as Meera Achrekar, the cricket fanatic who has a huge crush on Anil Kumble and is about to marry a doctor. But will cricket be the 'significant other'? That question almost wrecks a relationship, that going by the flow of the script, looked flimsy to begin with. And for those eagerly waiting to see Kumble's cameo don't even bother (Jumbo says to Meera at one point 'You look like Mandira Bedi!' - Did the writer lose his sense of humor there or his mind? Hard to tell!). Mercifully, unlike one of those drab days of test cricket on a dead subcontinent pitch, Meerabai Not Out is a short um…comedy, love story, sports movie, drama…whatever! And there are about 180 seconds worth watching. Pity, like stray deliveries from Anil Kumble, they are few and very far between.

It's often said that cricket and Bollywood are two major passions of Indians. Director Chandrakant Kulkarni's MEERABAI NOT OUT narrates the story of a cricket enthusiast who goes to the extremes -- even on the day of her engagement -- to watch a game of cricket.

But interesting ideas don't necessarily translate into interesting films. MEERABAI NOT OUT suffers because there's not much meat in its script. It's only during the penultimate moments that things begin to move, but that isn't enough to salvage the situation.

MEERABAI NOT OUT may give an impression of being a 'cricket film', but it's misleading. It's primarily a love story. In fact, a major part of the screen time is devoted to the love story, which, frankly, lacks the fizz.

Mandira and Ejaz Khan acts their part well.On the whole, MEERABAI NOT OUT is a below average fare and deserves to get clean bowled from the theaters in the first day itself !!!!!