There are some films that belong to a genre of their own. Manje Bistre 2 is one of them! This Baljit Singh Deo directorial starring Gippy Grewal and Simi Chahal in the lead roles isn’t your regular Punjabi wedding based comedy. Taking a cue from the original (Manje Bistre 2017), Manje Bistre 2 is an atmosphere (mahaul) based film that you can best enjoy if you think you’re a part of the family shown in the movie.
Written and produced by Gippy Grewal himself, Manje Bistre 2 provides a reasonably decent mix of Punjabi culture and comedy. One situation leads to another with the underlying theme of merging East and West – Punjabi culture amalgamated with Canadian sensibilities!
While on one side, the members of the family belonging to the older generation find it hard to keep Punjab out of their hearts despite having moved to the West, the younger generation wants to adopt the Western way of life, finding no meaning in our traditions and elaborate wedding rituals. How these two generations come together and accomplish an almost impossible task of organising a wedding merging both the cultures, is what Manje Bistre 2 all about.
Saadhu Halwai played by Karamjit Anmol was a significant and probably the most memorable character in the Original and this time also he gives a performance that’s unbeatable. Gippy Grewal performs well. Despite being the “hero” of the film, director Baljit Singh Deo doesn’t offer him any special screen space and the man does best in whatever role is given to him. Simi Chahal is decent while B.N. Sharma definitely makes you laugh tremendously throughout the film. Rest of the cast is good enough but the cutest is Jaggi Singh who impresses us with his cute Punjabi with a Canadian twang!
Manje Bistre 2 isn’t a pathbreaking film as opposed to its original which was a trendsetter and brought a whole new wave of wedding based films in Punjabi cinema. While Gippy Grewal definitely shines as an actor but as a writer, you might be a bit disappointed in him this time as the movie doesn’t really have an outstanding storyline. Comparing Manje Bistre 2 with Gippy Grewal’s earlier films (as a writer) like Mar Gaye Oye Loko and Ardaas, this one doesn’t stand at par.
Though you can definitely enjoy Manje Bistre 2 with your families and your kids might end up learning new things about Punjabi culture and life of Punjabis in Canada, yet it isn’t a film that’d either send you rolling with laughter or make you sentimental at any point. It’s a family movie presenting “natural”, light-hearted humour without being loud or over-creative. It presents family situations that you can definitely relate to, but don’t expect much from its storyline.
Our Rating: 3/5
P.S: While watching Manje Bistre 2 in the theatres, you shall also get a glimpse of Gippy Grewal-Sargun Mehta starrer – Chandigarh-Amritsar-Chandigarh as its teaser was shown during the interval. This was certainly a treat to watch and we can surely say that Chandigarh-Amritsar-Chandigarh is a film worth “desperately” waiting for!
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