Thank God, it is over!

One closeup of Seema Pahwa licking and slurping over a slice of mango had me so shaken I wondered: is this a horror film or a comedy?

Offensively sanctimonious and tragically humourless, Indra Kumar’s Diwali comedy is the visual equivalent of a fizzled-out firecracker. Not that it ever promised to be as engaging as the God-sent comedy God Tussi Great Ho in which Amitabh Bachchan had played God.

This time it is Ajay Devgn . And playing God he brings several references to Mr Bachchan (referred to as “woh lamba sa actor”) as lord CG (Devgn) plays a KBC-cloned game of death (pun intended) with Sidharth Malhotra .

Officially adapted from the mediocre Danish film Sorte Kugler, Thank God means well. This much I must credit Indra Kumar with. Having put his good intentions on the line, Kumar gets nothing right of the humour about a near-dead man playing a KBC-styled game with God (Devgn) to save himself from death.

For starters, the film never shrugs off its episodic television antecedents. As Devgn snaps into the blasé God’s role he covers all his bases as far as the moral watchdogs are concerned. Not a word that can be considered political inappropriate. No attempt to prove that Ayan Kapoor(Malhotra) has actually changed after his near-death experience.

Does he take his responsibilities towards his wife played by Rakul Preet Singh , who has a more sketchy role than Urmila Kotthare who plays Malhotra’s guilt-ridden sister who thinks she burnt her father’s house down. I am sure the writers of this comedy feel the same way. Such witless satires on godliness can do no good to the actors’ careers.

Indra Kumar has never been a director with any subtlety in his storytelling. Here he treads on really thin ice with episodic flashbacks into Ayaan’s life as a selfish human being. Ayn Rand’s Art of Selfishness gets a queer low-IQ treatment, with Devgn trying hard to bring some gravitas in a vitally slanderous and silly role. He plays God with a droll dignity. But the effort is wasted in a film that has no space for any skilful acting.

Sidharth Malhotra’s comic timing is drowned in overacting. Why must he make so many faces to prove he is capable of having fun in a role that we can see to be problematic and discomforting from miles away? Malhotra’s Ayan is required to be cruel to his mother, wife, sister, brother, even a random child whom he traumatizes by shutting in the bathroom. We are still supposed to like Ayan. A feat way beyond Malhotra’s means.

Thank God is like watching a film you have not signed up for. Religious satires in the past like Lok Parlok and Oh My God made us chuckle while rapping bigotry on the knuckle. Thank God forgets to laugh at itself as it is too busy laughing at its young hero who must not only go to Heaven but also meet Ajay Devgn there.

At the end, Sidharth Malhotra is still ogling at Nora Fatehi. There is really nowhere for him or the film to go.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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