Cast: Dr Rajendra Prasad, Nasser, Rambha, Raju Sundaram, Anu Menon, Vinay Pathak, Ranvir Shorey, Sandhya Mridul

Director: Shashanka Ghosh

Rating:***

To see Quick Gun Murugan was to love him. But this was back when the homegrown, hungry kids at the newly-launched Channel V wanted to show the `firangis’ at MTV what was what. In no time at all, the unlikely TV mascot who channeled every single red-blooded, red-lipsticked Tamil superhero, was an icon, and we were all like that `wonly’.

Fifteen years on, Quick Gun’s Sambar Western cowboy turn on the big screen is another story altogether. It has all the ingredients of a mind-blowing spoof right where it wants them : sets done up in primary colours of canary yellow, and shocking pink, and dark crimson, matching Quick Gun’s multi-hued raiment; loud villains, curvaceous molls, and a hero who stands up for vegetarians. He thunders : down with the non-veg dosa, I say! And we are all set to applaud.

Sorry `sar’, Quick Gun Redux, while randomly scattering a few chuckles, doesn’t crack us up the way the original did. Dr Rajendra Prasad makes a lovely looking QG, but takes his character too seriously. So does Mr Big Bad Guy Rice Plate Reddy ( Nasser). Raju Sundaram, as the Bad Guy No 2, has the right lightness of face and feet, but not enough footage. Vinay and Ranveer and Sandhya have bit parts, and the film is nowhere near as funny as it should have been.

The real delight of the film is Mango Dolly ( whoever thought of the name, please go to the top of the class), played by Bombshell Rambha : she drowns out the twittering of Locket Girl ( Anu Menon, better known as Lola Kutty), with a flick of her blonde wig.

... contd.