Money Back Guarantee (MBG), a directorial debut of Faisal Quraishi is one of the most-awaited movies of this year which was released this Eid-ul-Fitr.
From Fawad Khan’s charming appeal to Ayesha Omar’s cameo, this political satire features familiar faces such as Gohar Rasheed, Hina Dilpazeer, Javed Sheikh, Mikaal Zulfiqar, Kiran Malik, Adnan Jafar, among others, alongside debut actors Wasim Akram and Shaniera Akram.
When the movie begin, a disclaimer was issued that as an audience we may think we’ve seen the movie and situation before but it’s just our delusion. At that moment I wondered why they displayed such a disclaimer but as the movie began and an hour passed, I knew why!
So the plot of the story seems simple; a gang of deprived amateurs decide to rob a bank to meet their ends meet. But here comes the twist, the story isn’t as simple as it seemed in the trailer.
P.S. SPOILERS ALERT!
Every character of the robbers has literally presented a provincial problem, you’ll witness every province’s uniqueness and every Pakistani identity. From Sindhi speaking ranting about the water shortage, he faces at his home to a woman named Sanam Baloch suffering from a shortage of gas in the building she lives in, the movie has it all.
This movie has shown the darkest side of Pakisatn in such a humourous way that one will feel relatable to almost every scene in the movie. It’s surely slow in the start but once you get to understand the character, you will understand the plot as well.
One thing I’d like to mention here is the movie was slated to release in 2020 but however it for delayed due to the covid situation. So technically it might have been shot in before 2020 as a character named Donald Duck (Donald Trump) brilliantly played by Shafaat Ali was also shown in the movie. The movie displayed the old political situation of the movie which somehow is still relevant to the current situation of the movie; it’s sad to see our country is still there, not moving forward, instead, our economical and social situation has become worse.
Talking about the plot, the makers tried to make haleem out of a movie using lots of ingredients, new flavours, and special essence while using the same old recipe so it can be delightful and delicious but somehow in between it turn out to be a simple dalya. The almost two hours movie was a ride of deja vu just like at the start with a disclaimer that stated that if we think we have seen the movie then it’s just our delusion.
I loved the cameos of Ali Rehman Khan and Muniba Mazari, and especially of George Fulton. The casting could have been done better, instead of Mani, Mohib Mirza could have done a better job at presenting Karachi’s typical Mahajir boy, and Gohar Rasheed who is no doubt a brilliant actor and played a role of a Sindhi speaking in the movie. Although he did justice to his character still Ali Gul Pir might have nailed the character more.
For the lovers of Pakistani heartthrob Fawad Khan, in this movie, Khan’s character is witty and greedy, yet he will make you fall in love with him. He proved through his character that he is not just eye candy but in reality, he’s an exceptional actor who doesn’t need amazing writing to shine in a scene; yes that’s Fawad Khan.
Talking about the direction, well I am not going to lie when I heard Quraishi’s name, I was quite thrilled about the movie but while watching it, Quraishi’s charm was missing.
His attempt to highlight the problems of Pakistan that everyone is aware of, from religious to ethnic, to provincial, to economically made the movie a bit out-focussed at one point, as I mentioned before somewhere in between Haleem and Dalya.
While watching the movie, something was missing, like punch lines, and no constant character building; one character falling in love with another one and just in time another one is flirting with another one.
Like every movie, this film had also songs but only three but these three songs are enough as a complete package; colourful, hilarious, offbeat, and every song had a hidden message which will it you hard. The song at the end where the lyrics were similar like ‘truck bhar k humne paise churae, dollar mein convert how you chote bag mein aye’. Well, it was funny and thought-provoking as well.
In short, MBG is a brilliant satire for people who are aware of Pakistani politics and satire for those who have humour. The one-liner situational comedy was not neatly but nicely pulled off by Faisal Qureshi.
