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Kaydyacha Bola
| Kaydyacha Bola | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Chandrakant Kulkarni |
| Produced by | Uday Tamhankar |
| Starring | Makarand Anaspure Sharvari Jamenis Sachin Khedekar Mohan Agashe Nirmiti Sawant Umesh Kamat Akshay Pendse Amita Khopkar |
| Music by | Tyagraj Khadilkar |
Release date | 4 November 2005 (Maharashtra) |
| Country | India |
| Language | Marathi |
Kaydyacha Bola (translation: Speak About Law) is a 2005 Indian Marathi-language dark comedy courtroom drama film directed by Chandrakant Kulkarni and produced by Uday Tamhankar. Released in Maharashtra on 4 November 2005, the film stars an ensemble cast of Makarand Anaspure, Sharvari Jamenis, Sachin Khedekar, Mohan Agashe, Nirmiti Sawant, Umesh Kamat, Akshay Pendse and Amita Khopkar. The plot focuses on an inexperienced lawyer stepping in to defend two innocent youngsters being accused of murder. The film is a remake of Jonathan Lynn's My Cousin Vinny (1992).[1]
Story[edit]
Abhijeet Vaidya (Umesh Kamat) and Harshavardhan Ghodke (Akshay Pendse), two close friends and engineering college students, lie to their respective parents and plan to go for a trip to Mumbai from Harshavardhan's relatives' red-coloured Scorpio car registered with the number "3417". After they reach their destination the next morning, the duo stops at a petrol pump in Chembur situated on the Mumbai-Pune Highway. While there, Abhijeet and Harshavardhan get their car tyres filled with air by mechanic Prabhudeva (Samir Choughule), also known as Tambi, and also jokingly converse with dance artist Saraswatibai Jagaonkar (Nirmiti Sawant), whose dance troupe has stopped at the petrol pump as well for their bus repair work. While Harshavardhan is getting petrol filled in their car by the petrol pump employee Pandurang Kute, Abhijeet decides to go to buy snacks from a store located in the vicinity. The store owner Sawant (Girish Joshi) is woken up from his sleep by Abhijeet, who manages to persuade him to let him buy snacks from the store. While buying snacks, Abhijeet quickly shoplifts a music CD to teach the irritated Sawant a lesson for his rude behaviour. The duo departs the petrol pump.
Soon after, Abhijeet and Harshavardhan are apprehended by the Mumbai police at a nearby checkpoint for unknown reasons. They initially believe that they have been arrested for shoplifting the CD from Sawant's store. After being taken to the police station, the duo is shocked to learn that they have been accused of robbing and stabbing Pandurang Kute fatally with a gupti (an Indian weapon which looks like a swordstick) inside the petrol pump premises, a shocking and unexpected incident that happened soon after their departure from the petrol pump. Due to circumstantial evidence and the confession to the shoplifting misconstrued as one to the stabbing, Abhijeet is charged with first-degree murder and Harshavardhan as his accomplice in crime. Being lost in a strange city with no contacts, Abhijeet helplessly contacts his ingenuous mother Shaku (Amita Khopkar) from the police station in his village to explain their position and asks her to somehow free them from this matter. Shaku informs Abhijeet that her brother and his maternal uncle Advocate Keshav Kunthalgirikar (Makarand Anaspure) is an inexperienced but dubiously credentialed lawyer in their family. Keshav, who has been communicated by Shaku, arrives in Mumbai and visits Abhijeet and Harshavardhan in prison, advising them to be truthful to him and the court about their involvement in the murder.
Being totally new to the practice of law, Keshav embarrasses himself before the prosecution counsel Advocate Phadnavis (Sachin Khedekar) and the judge Prabhune (Mohan Agashe) in the first hearing of the trial. Due to his disrespect and failure to follow court etiquette, Prabhune punishes him for contempt of court and sentences Keshav to imprisonment for two days. In prison, Keshav meets serial gambler Bhai (Sanjay Mone) and his gang who bully and make fun of Keshav. However, Keshav's girlfriend Neha (Sharvari Jamenis) comes to visit him in Mumbai and bails him out. After a lot of deliberation, the couple checks into a hotel room where Neha is shown to be romantic and Keshav shy. In the next hearing, Keshav argues of the only evidence against Abhijeet and Harshavardhan being circumstantial that Phadnavis counters that the available evidence is strong enough to convict them.
Later, it is shown that Harshavardhan's father Suryakant Ghodke (Arun Nalawade), who is a renowned politician, learns about the arrest of him and Abhijeet and decides to arrange for a more experienced lawyer rather than the raw and inexperienced Keshav. A public defender Advocate G. B. Godbole (Pushkar Shrotri) is arranged by Harshavardhan's father, but he stutters and stammers constantly and has great difficulty in forming cohesive sentences, leading to a lot of amusement in the court. Harshavardhan's father, however, eventually fires Godbole and decides to retain Keshav, tremendously impressed with the his cross-examination skills. In the following hearing, the prosecution examines Saraswatibai and Tambi as they both were witnesses at the petrol pump where the murder took place. Nevertheless, Keshav's cross-examination with Tambi and Saraswatibai clearly establishes that the possibility of another red-coloured Scorpio car being present at the petrol pump during the time of the murder cannot be ruled out, thus creating reasonable doubt.
Further, the prosecution examines Sawant who is still irritated about the fact that Abhijeet disturbed his sleep and vociferously states that the murderer could have not been anyone else but the accused Abhijeet and Harshavardhan. However, Keshav cross-examines him and exploits gaps in his testimony, establishing that his attention was diverted from the petrol pump around the time of the murder, and thus he could have not stated with absolute certanity that not anyone else rather than Abhijeet and Harshavardhan is the murder. In the next hearing, the prosecution examines the investigating officer Inspector P. J. Ambildhage (Ganesh Yadav) where Keshav even discusses the probability of the police manipulating evidence to trap Abhijeet and Harshavardhan, which further weakens the prosecution case. At the end of the hearing, Phadnavis, seemingly impressed with the novice Keshav's advocacy skills, invites him to his farmhouse for a drink that night. During their meeting, Phadnavis carefully teases Keshav around his law school days, his graduation, and his initial days as a lawyer, which Keshav hesitantly answers. He then gets into a debate with Phadnavis about how law and advocacy is more important than just earning money and manipulating the legal system to win cases. This irks Phadnavis who has a record of not losing a single case and angrily orders Keshav to leave, swearing that he will destroy his case in the next hearing.
In the final hearing, Keshav concludes his arguments and has seemingly succeeded in convincing Prabhune of Abhijeet and Harshavardhan's innocence. However, Phadnavis twists the tale and asks for permission from Prabhune to examine "Keshav" as a witness, much to everyone's puzzlement. Phadnavis asks Keshav under oath about his shaky professional history and eventually, it is revealed that Keshav never passed the bar or obtained a license to practice law. On this ground, Phadnavis applies for a re-trial of the case before Prabhune with a rather qualified lawyer to represent Abhijeet and Harshavardhan. When demanded an explanation, an ashamed Keshav admits his mistake before Prabhune and goes on to make an emotional speech about how the law was meant to uphold justice and serve the needy and instead, laments that it has become a tool for people like Phadnavis to exploit technical loopholes in the procedure to strongarm cases in their favour, at the expense of the poor and needy who end up with nothing in their hands. As regards the case, Keshav creates more reasonable doubt by explaining that the angle of the injuries found on Pandurang Kute's dead body strongly indicates that the murderer should have been a left-hander and points out that both Abhijeet and Harshavardhan are right-handers.
Acting upon Saraswatibai's information, the Mumbai police investigate that a group of criminals with a red-coloured Scorpio car in Pune was recently arrested for a bank robbery and that they are presumably the culprits of Pandurang Kute's murder as well. Prabhune, on the basis of reasonable doubt, announces a verdict of not guilty to Abhijeet and Harshavardhan, much to the relief of them and Keshav. However, given that Keshav has committed a crime by practicing law without a license, Prabhune orders a trial against him for cheating and contempt of court under Sections 419 and 420 of the Indian Penal Code. In the end, Abhijeet and Harshavardhan profusely thank Keshav for his help and apologise to him for what everything cost him. Before his arrest, Keshav promises Neha that he will be with her forever in life after his release from prison. The film ends with everyone celebrating Keshav's victory as he is taken to the police station from a decorated police van.
Cast[edit]
- Makarand Anaspure as Keshav Kunthalgirikar
- Sharvari Jamenis as Neha
- Sachin Khedekar as Advocate Phadnavis
- Mohan Agashe as Judge Prabhune
- Nirmiti Sawant as Saraswatibai Jagaonkar (dance artist)
- Umesh Kamat as Abhijeet Vaidya
- Akshay Pendse as Harshavardhan Ghodke
- Amita Khopkar as Shaku Vaidya (Abhijeet's mother)
- Pushkar Shrotri as Advocate G. B. Godbole (public defender)
- Arun Nalawade as Suryakant Ghodke (Harshavardhan's father)
- Sanjay Mone as Bhai (serial gambler)
- Samir Choughule as Prabhudeva a.k.a. Tambi (petrol pump mechanic)
- Girish Joshi as Sawant (petrol pump vicinity store owner)
- Ganesh Yadav as Inspector P. J. Ambildhage (investigating officer)
Soundtrack[edit]
The music is provided by Tyagraj Khadilkar.
Reception[edit]
The film was received quite positively by critics and the audience and performed fairly well at the box office. All the actors were appreciated for their roles, no matter how major or minor.