Despite pinching its premise from Mark Joffe’s 2001 Australian hit comedy The Man Who Sued God, Umesh Shukla’s OMG: Oh My God! nevertheless manages to find its own identity and sustain a satisfactory whimsy over its slightly too long two-and-a-bit hour running time.
an intrinsically likable work
Shukla’s fable takes its sweet time getting off the ground but ultimately proves to be an utterly adorable, nicely humanistic riff on the role of religion in an everyman’s life. The production takes some sly yet bold steps in conveying the theme that faith above blind belief is what’s most important. There’s a real risk that zealots of different faiths may find this message radically combative, but that’s arguably the point Shukla’s film is trying to make.
In a star-making turn, Paresh Rawal plays Kanji Mehta, an atheistic shopkeeper so disenchanted with organised religion he deliberately disrupts a huge celebration to honour to Govinda (set to the film’s central musical interlude). But when his business is levelled in an earthquake and his insurance company refuses to pay out due to it being an 'act of God’, Kanji decides to sue The Lord for recompense. Muslim, Christian and Hindu factions are suddenly united when the outcome of a court case – in which their financial coffers will be laid bare – begins.
Kanji becomes a national sensation as he fights a philosophical battle with church elders, the legal system and popular religious beliefs. All the while, the unshakable prophet Krishna (superstar Akshay Kumar), having taken up residence in Kanji’s home and prone to spouting words of wisdom at precisely the right moment, guides the faithless merchant in a fight against the worshipping of false idols and modern society’s willingness to trust the unworthy.
The controversy surrounding the film in its homeland is hard to fathom, considering the inherent message of OMG: Oh My God! is 'faith above all else’. Along with co-writer Bhavesh Mandalia, Shukla’s main aim seems to be to expose avarice and ignorance, not any particular belief structure. There is also a strong central theme about honouring family; despite his atheism, Rawal is a committed and attentive father and a flawed but generally loving husband.
OMG: Oh My God! is, most tellingly, an intrinsically likable work. As colourful and occasionally frantic as you would expect from a commercial Bollywood work (Akshay Kumar’s God-like figure makes his dashing entrance on a motorbike in a big action setpiece, for goodness sake!), Shukla’s enjoyable, entertaining second feature still manages to raise fascinating, even-handed questions regarding religion’s relevance and importance in modern society.
