Director Priyadarshan's satire Khatta Meetha (Sour and Sweet) leaves a similar aftertaste. While it is endearing to watch Sachin Tichkule (Akshay Kumar), a struggling road works contractor, make an earnest effort to make a living, the inane songs and lack of chemistry with his lover Gehna Ganpule (Trisha Krishnan) is a buzz-kill.
Priyadarshan may have started out to make a comedy but matters take a serious tone in the second half when Kumar tries to weed out the corruption in the construction industry: this is precisely where the road to entertainment gets bumpy. Unlike their previous intellectually-challenged comedies such as Garam Masala and De Dana Dan, this latest Priyadarshan-Kumar collaboration is not a comedy by any definition. Be warned, the viewer may even feel a bit cheated.
After being treated to their Dumb and Dumber genre of films, it takes a while to get used to the film's seriousness. But the ace performances from Kumar, his lusty side-kick Rajpal Yadav and the morally upright father Kulbhushan Kharbanda break us in gently.
I wish Priyadarshan had snipped some of the half-a-dozen sidekicks who were employed to bring comic relief. Case in point: the bulky elephant-steamroller sequence made it seem as if Priyadarshan was going through an identity crisis and couldn't decide whether to stick to the sober satire or not.
The star of the film is clearly the producer and lead actor, Kumar. As his son Aarav noted, Kumar can easily be equated with the human equivalent of Tom and Jerry. Watch Khatta Meetha for Kumar's antics only.
