02 November,2012 07:51 PM IST | | Shaheen Parkar
This is clearly a case of why an actor should stick to the craft he knows best - acting. Rajpal Yadav has earned a name in B-Town mainly for his comic roles and may have had his reasons to go behind the camera. Apart from being the director, he has also done the screenplay, dialogues and the music.
Here he is also the lead hero so to drive home the point there are two Yadavs - one a nautanki actor-singer with a penchant for jumping into horse suits and galloping around the world's well-known sites. The other is an aam aadmi who is running pillar-to-post as his house has gone missing. The former has a mop of hair while the latter has lost his crowning glory - cause of too many woes in his life?
Rajpal Yadav in Ata Pata Laapata
You have heard of thefts, break-ins and broad daylight robberies in a house. Here overnight the walls of the house go missing along with what's inside. There's no earthquake to blame. The walls have walked away and the only telltale signs are a barren plot and the toilet seats! For the onlookers, it appears that the home consisted only of shauchalayas. The film could have been a comic caper had the story delved upon the strange robbery and the anguish of the common man in finding the four walls of the house.
Yadav has declared it to be an organised musical chaos. Make it a disorganised one. Apart from making a song and dance about every scene, he seems to have been extremely keen to put in his theatre background to the fore. So the film unfolds at one level on the floorboards and the other around the missing house adding to the rubble left behind.
The cast includes an assortment of character actors of B-Town to add to the buffoonery. The plot may have been to take on the corrupt system but in Yadav's overenthusiasm to showcase himself as a comedian, stage actor, dancer, musician, it all goes flat. It's better that this film remains laapata to the audience and Yadav stick to his acting.
