In an industry starved of children's films, any attempt to create a full blown entertainer aimed at the tween audience needs to be lauded. Unlike Hollywood, which treats its young audience very seriously, Bollywood really doesn't have much to boast about in this department. Hence the importance of a film like Hari Puttar which doesn't try to talk to adults through a tween protagonist. It talks to all. The film focuses on the heroics of a ten-year-old hero and is sure to have everyone -- under 10s and over 10s -- chuckling with glee with its generous splattering of slapstick masala and message. For behind all the bluster and pranks, there is the sweet little homily on the great Indian family. A happy family is the antidote to all evils. Amen!
Hari Puttar is a cute Punjabi munda who, like all pre-pubescent kids, feels awkward, out of place and almost neglected in his kingsize family. In a fretful moment, he just wishes they would disappear. And they do. The puttar is left alone with his young cousin, Tuk Tuk (Swini Khara) and hopes to do everything he's not allowed to do. Like, rummaging through his elder brother's possessions, exploring his dad's study, shaving like a man....Until, the intruders arrive. Then, it's a full blown war to save a microchip, that has national importance, from the goons (Saurabh Shukla, Vijay Raaz).
It's here, in the second half, that the film really picks up and evokes peals of laughter, as the bumbling baddies end up bruised, battered and Hari weary. The fulcrum of the zany show is young Zain Khan who manages to create a winsome picture of a strong, yet vulnerable kid, longing for his mom in the midst of the mayhem. Cute.
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