Two decades too late

Super Nani 

Hindi (U) *

Director: Indra Kumar

Cast: Rekha, Randhir Kapoor, Anupam Kher, Sharman Joshi

The last time Rekha starred in a film where her plain-Jane character underwent an image-shattering makeover, it saw the character’s husband try to bump her off by throwing her to crocodiles.

The people who went to see Super Nani would have gladly taken her place. And if the crocodiles shed tears at the audience plight, it would be real. 

Here’s a film replete with cliches and formulae that might have worked in the late 1980s-90s, but Rekha’s beauty seems to have outlived them. 

You have the mother Bharti (Ma Bharti, geddit?) being constantly belittled and insulted by her son, daughter and daughter-in-law, who have all learnt it from their dad (Randhir Kapoor), who seems to think his wife’s place is in the kitchen, and whose only contribution to him is their three children. 

Meanwhile, the saccharine-sweet woman showing enough love to smother goons with care and “ghar ka khana” into postponing plans to beat up her son for not paying a loan.

The arrival of the grandson Mann (Sharman Joshi), the son of their first offspring, heralds the supposed “voice of reason” into the family. He takes grandma on a transformation trip, turning her into an advertisement star with the help of her recently rediscovered childhood friend (Anupam Kher). 

Then, they go about teaching each family member Bharti’s value, until they all come around. And they do it with so much melodrama that director Indra Kumar’s earliest films, like Beta, seem like a Quentin Tarantino offering!

Humdrum music, weak-as-a-whisker plot, story and screenplay, and poor helming let Super Nani sink further. And while Sharman Joshi’s comic timing does show up at places, template-generated acting by the rest of the cast — including Kher, Kapoor and the girl playing Mann’s toothpaste-advertisement of a love interest — hammer the last nail in the film’s coffin.