Lucky Baskhar - A Du"lucky"quer show

Lucky Baskhar

Telugu - Crime / Family Drama
150 mins
Netflix

I have great admiration for Dulquer Salman (DQ) as an actor. Multilingual, he effortlessly dubs his lines in Tamil, Hindi and Telugu movies, besides his native tongue. He has the potential to be the Pan Indian "actor" in the truest sense, especially with urban audiences. I deliberately do not use the word "star", as proven by the debacle of his "King of Kotha". He excels in character-driven roles than the typical mass-hero archetype.

In Lucky Baskhar, DQ is Baskhar, a mild mannered 90's Mumbaikar with all the "regular" familial challenges thrown in. An ailing parent, unwed sister, college aspiring brother, beautiful wife who let go of her wealthy family, Sumathi ( Meenakshi Chaudhary), young son who is bullied and of course lots of unpaid bills/rent. 

The initial portrayal of Baskhar's financial struggles seems contrasting with his lifestyle. He is always wearing nice shirt, rides a scooter, his wife has a wardrobe of non repeating crisply pressed cotton sarees and yet he has zero money in his wallet and has to rely on a pav bhaji wala's gratis!

Baskhar is an employee of a private bank. Popular, honest, trustworthy and an absolute star with his colleagues. He is looking to be promoted and hoping that would significantly improve his financial situation. He also "helps" many of the customers of the bank at a nearby cafe (off hours) with writing checks, guiding them with paper work and helping with their applications. Here, he is accosted by Anthony (yesteryear Tamil lead Ramki), who is looking for a loan, sans collateral.

Surprise!, Baskhar does not get the promotion and "loans" Anthony, who is actually smuggling electronics and needs the money to free up his consignment. That scheme works well and slowly but surely the partnership is a big success and Baskhar's money troubles are all gone. Baskhar also makes use of his promotion at work to become a critical enabler to the Bank receipt/BR scam (We know this, thanks to Scam 1992).

Barring the first 20 mins that setup the movie, it is very pacy and well edited.  Despite the now much repeated "scam" trope, writer director Venky Atluri manages to surprise us with a very fresh perspective and screenplay. 

I loved Ramki as Anthony - quiet, dignified and classy in his part. Meenakshi Chaudhury probably plays her first meaningful part and she is quite ok. Baskhar's dad,  a retired judge, a face i was trying to recall. He is Sarvadaman Banerjee, the OG standalone Krishna and his few scenes at the end are cool. It is a DQ show all the way, making the movie a breezy watch.