102 Not Out (2018)

102 Not Out (2018) had many reasons to intrigue me – story of how a centenarian and his septuagenarian go about with their lives – starring two of the doyens of modern-day Hindi Cinema – Amitabh Bachchan and Rishi Kapoor– directed by Umesh Shukla whose earlier film Oh My God! (2012) I liked a lot.  I guess I waited for too long for it to be released with English subtitles in Chennai, then I forgot – today, I got to watch the film and enjoyed it thoroughly.

Dattatraya Vakharia (Amitabh Bachchan) is a 102-year-old who is young at heart and enjoys life to its fullest, directly contrast to him is his 76-year-old son Babulal Vakharia (Rishi Kapoor) who is meticulous about everything and constantly worried about his health. One day Dattatraya “announces” that he has decided to live for another 16 years to beat the record of the (then) oldest man in the world, a Chinese and to do that he has to be away from people with negative vibes, this means sending Babulal to an old-age home. Shocked! Babulal agrees to do whatever his father Dattatraya wants him to do – a perfect setting for a good comedy.

It was a delight to watch Amitabh and Rishi, effortlessly bringing their individual characters to life, that we stop caring for the story which was unremarkable and remain fixated on just seeing them on screen. The screenplay was top-notch, there were hardly any lengthy scenes or boring emotional dialogues. I liked the scene where to prove an important point, Dattatraya calls up a number in the USA and puts the conversation on speaker – it was refreshing to see this straight batting within a family. Similarly, the climax at the Airport was too good, that I got up and clapped (it was in my home theatre, with my son looking at me weirdly!).

A fine cinema to watch with your family on a weekend. Don’t miss it!

Available on Amazon Prime Video.