It’s hard not to guess the ending of Anil Sharma’s Vanvaas after just the first hour. The movie tells a story we’ve seen before: children leaving their elderly parents behind and a stranger who brings them hope. But Vanvaas is not like Baghban, the emotional film with Amitabh Bachchan and Hema Malini, which felt genuine. Here, the emotions are so obvious, they might as well be highlighted in red.
When the story moves to Benaras, we hear a typical religious song, and there are too many flashbacks showing the main character’s life in a confusing way. Young Nana Patekar awkwardly lip-syncs to a romantic song, and Utkarsh Sharma tries to speak with a Benarasi accent but doesn’t pull it off well. The story jumps around a lot, making it feel forced and disconnected.
What starts as a love story between Deepak Tyagi (played by Nana) and his wife Vimala turns into a soap opera with rude children and mean daughters-in-law. There’s a fight over property that Deepak, who is dealing with dementia after Vimala’s death, owns. To his kids—Somu, Bablu, and Chutka—he’s just a burden. They plan to leave him in Benaras and pretend he’s dead.
In the chaos of the town, a troubled Deepak meets a conman named Veeru (Utkarsh), who tricks him out of money. Then, the film shifts to show a romance between Veeru and his girlfriend Meena (Simratt Kaur Randhawa). It even adds some lazy action scenes, making the story feel even more scattered.
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