'36 Farmhouse' Movie Review: Cheesy Dialogues And A Cringy Plot Prove That Subhash Ghai Is Still Living In The 1980s

Director: Ram Ramesh Sharma

Cast: Sanjay Mishra, Vijay Raaz, Amol Parashar, Ashwini Kalsekar, Barkha Singh, Flora Saini

What’s It About:

During the lockdown, a father and son duo (Sanjay Mishra and Amol Parashar) abandon their journey back to their village to take up residence in the titular '36 Farmhouse' under the premise of occupations they're not suited to undertake in order to make a quick hit. They quickly discover, however, that the owner (Vijay Raaz) and his estranged extended family are harbouring some dangerous secrets, all of which are linked to the family matriarch's will.

What’s Hot:

Even though absolutely unnecessary to the flow of the story, there are a couple of songs in the movie. Surprisingly, they are decently good. It’s great to be blown away by Sonu Nigam’s voice in a movie after a really long time. The songs have the melodious feel of yesteryears, and that’s what differentiates them from everything else that’s happening.

What’s Not:

Everything else!

It’s hard to believe that stalwart actors like Sanjay Mishra, Vijay Raaz, Ashwini Kalsekar said yes to this project. It has to be out of goodwill and respect for the veteran Subhash Ghai, because otherwise, there is genuinely no depth of character for anyone of their caliber to play such roles. There is absolutely zero character progression, and they all seem to be playing hard on the same tropes which they’ve been famous for in the past as well. No fodder at all to play around with.

Youngsters like Amol Parashar and Barkha Singh also have too superficial characters for anyone to be able to relate to them. The rest of the supporting cast also didn’t have much to do.

To top all of this, the plot is filled with loopholes and things that even a kid in today’s world would be able to point out. Sadly, the writing by Subhash Ghai isn’t top-caliber as per today’s sensibilities. The same plot would have worked well in the 1980s-90s when such movies were prevalent in huge numbers. But, to the Netflix-Prime watching new-age viewers, these are just too hard to bear through.

If the plot wasn’t cringy enough, the cheesy dialogues make this unbearable. The boy tells the girl that he now needs to go and save his parents as it was his duty, and all the while he knew that the parents were locked up in a room just five steps ahead from where they were standing.

The direction by Ram Ramesh Sharma is simply too amateurish. There are plots that are left unanswered in the end. There are characters that are shown once and never shown again to even explain why that conversation was given screen time.

Lastly, the climax. In a thriller murder mystery what the audiences are expecting is to have a grand finale where things are revealed and finally the killer gets caught, and it happens to be someone whom you were not expecting at all. Sadly, this isn’t the case here. It’s too predictable and you know from the very first as to who the killer could be, and, in the end, they only end up being the killer. The climax is just so plain Jane that you’re left pulling your hair out thinking ‘Why the hell did I waste my time waiting for this?’

Verdict:

Subhash Ghai didn’t need to do this. The film is filled with cheesy dialogues and the very basic plot itself is cringy to say the least. I know it’s a pandemic outdoors, and not many places to visit, but nothing is worth staying at home and watching this film. So, please AVOID! I am going with 1 star.