'Mother Promise' Movie Review: This Gangster Comedy Is Overlong, Yet Chaotic In The Right Way

As you're leaving the theatres after watching Mother Promise, you're likely to look back on it as a walking, talking 'drink-and-drive' disclaimer — and a funny, surprisingly heartwarming one at that. It ticks off every box for an absurdist gangster comedy, and quite successfully for a debut director. Even if that's not your usual genre of choice, it’s packed with enough warmth and pure silliness for you to enjoy it alongside an audience in the theatres.

Poornachandra Mysore writes, directs, and stars as Ryandi, a gambling addict whose losing streak lands him in the crosshairs of two rival dons: Rossi (Daali Dhananjaya), who runs the city's gambling mafia, and the magnificently named Donne Biriyani, played by Mahadev Prasad, who controls the city's narcotics world. Both men move through a stylised fictional Bengaluru city with their own entourages of identically chaotic juniors.

The film opens on a masterstroke that will instantly win every Bengalurean's heart and will immediately get them dancing: RCB's long-awaited IPL triumph. It is followed by the film’s opening track, Veni Vidi Vici, a genuinely catchy song that carries the energy straight through and successfully sets the film’s tone.

Somewhere after that strong opening follow a handful of rather unnecessary plot points which distract one from the screen. Scenes both right before and after the interval, in particular, could have been done away with entirely — including a whole 5-minute sequence of just Rossi's crew walking through the city.

The second half further tests your patience as it's packed with one twist too many, with overlapping conflicts that become difficult to track. Yet as the tensions escalate, the film places high expectations on its own climax that, to Mysore's credit, it largely meets. The various parties finally crash together in a finale that earns its laughs and 'aww's. Navaneeth Sham's music does heavy lifting throughout, and deserves due credit.

The intent behind the film is absolutely admirable, and most definitely shines through in the final product, even if the layout is messy, and a good quarter of the film feels like it was placed wrong on the edit timeline.

What shines throughout is the plot itself, which is essentially Tom and Jerry scaled up to gang-war proportions. The film is a jumbled up wild goose chase dotted with a comedy of mistaken identities and slapstick humour. The confusion is very much the point.

The film's underlying message about friendship, a mother's love and how even the toughest dons will straighten up in front of their teachers emerge strong at the climax. It'll tug at your heartstrings, too, with its mildly overdone "mere paas maa hai" (or maybe, nahi hai) tone.

Dhananjaya is the film's most reliable anchor. As Rossi, he brings a controlled menace that makes the absurdist comedy around him land hardest. Mysore, in front of the camera, is equally committed, and has gone to the extent of looking genuinely ridiculous in service of the film's chaos.

With its spot-on inside jokes, underrated one-liners and an all-round funny cast, Mother Promise ultimately leaves you hopeful for more such chuckles to help us take a break from the rough and tough of the world around us. To give you a sense of its shenanigans, the film is silly enough to hold back its title card until right before the climax. You guessed it. Just for laughs. And the laughs keep coming.