How do you conceive a decent story idea, get a production house like Dharma to back it, convince Madhuri Dixit, Sumit Raghavan, Renuka Shahane, Vandana Gupte, Pradeep Velankar, Shubha Khote, Ila Bhate and Dilip Prabhavalkar to become a part of it and make a painfully below average movie? Watch "Bucket List" and you have an answer.
Madhuri Dixit's marathi debut is a damp squib. Tejas Prabha Vijay Deoskar (Yes, that's the director's name!) who has also co-written the screenplay never gets out of the "English Vinglish" hangover. The characters are all flawed. Almost all of them. Madhuri Dixit plays Madhura Sane, an upper middle class woman who neither knows what a bucket list means nor knows how to use the internet! Her husband played by Sumit Raghavan dangles somewhere between being a loving, supportive husband and a male chauvinist. I guess, the director had a tough time deciding what he should be. Their daughter is.. how do I put this.. a combination of oversmart, rude and plain dumb. The in-laws and the parents are "typical". The grand mother in law is hip to a fault.
The emotions are forced and so is the humor. The dialogues are either bland or so bad that they're laughable. At one point Madhura's husband asks her where he is placed on her bucket list and she says.. well you're my bucket!! I could picture KJo drowning in that same bucket after watching that scene!
Production value is obviously good with Dharma in the mix, music is strictly forgettable, the choreography is strange, editing is non existent and the background score is 'inspired'.
The central draw of the film is, of course, Madhuri. She looks much older than her screen age of 41, has a major diction problem (I wondered why!) and has very rarely shown her acting skills in the 2 hours 10 minutes running time.
If the movie is on your wish list, maybe you should chuck it off. If you insist on watching, go with a huge group of friends and have fun. You'll still need popcorn for entertainment and some caffeine to keep you awake.