Oh good Lord’s!

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Chweet, so sweet. Aapro Rusi cooks, cleans, tucks his son into bed, casts a loving glance at his cranky dad, and believe it or collapse, insists on paying a fine on scootering through a red traffic light. Fright.

This figment of imagination can’t be real. Then, you, tell yourself oh-ho producer and co-writer Vidhu Vinod Chopra, with creative producer support from Rajkumar Hirani, and direction from Rajesh Mapuskar have set up a kind of Frank Capra-style of goody-goody land (but for a few baddies, of course), for an inspirational narrative titled Ferrari ki Sawaari.

Now, that’s what you call the importance of being earnest, simple and all things nice. Need spice? Okay, boss, you got it: Vidya Balan shows up for an item number in what could be called this year’s The Clean Picture. Boombaat, you do get, but only from staid angles focusing on her smile-’n’-bangles. For more characters ideal for family viewing, you’ll also meet a militantly honest traffic cop, an adorable sports goods dealer and a cricket coach who looks like a candle melting before the camera. You can’t get nicer than this.

Of course, for the main dessert course there’s the aforecited Rusi (Sharman Joshi), a doting dad who must raise Rs 1.5 lakh to send his cutie-pie son (Ritwik Sahore) for cricket coaching at the Lord’s. Rusi is head clerk at the RTO, Worli (which he never fails to specify), but doesn’t have money to spare. Deep despair. Next: Attempts to beg and borrow don’t work, so steal it is. And here comes the screenplay’s most contrived element: if Rusi pinches Sachin Tendulkar’s Ferrari for a night, a wedding planner (Seema Bhargava), will cough up the cash. How credible is that?

To add to the implausibilities, the Ferrari’s keys are in Rusi’s possession in a zip and a zap, thanks to a bumbling pair of the master blaster’s domestic aides. Actually, these aides are portrayed so farcically that they are the zaniest and the most likeable of the caboodle out here. Meanwhile, circumstances rock some more for Rusi’s game-plan till — good Lord’s! — your heart sinks. Dad Rusi places the much-needed bundle of cash in the stolen Ferrari’s dashboard. Why? Why? Please don’t, you’ll forget it you scream, but there he’s dunnit. Ooof.

More: the plot keeps organising speed-breakers aplenty — in the midst of which grumbling grandpa (Boman Irani) has a swift change of heart. He also wants his “dahyo” grandson to head Lord’s-wards, and has this meeting with a friend who had stabbed him in the back once. Enter Paresh Rawal for some smooth villainy. Meanwhile, the stolen Ferrari is still parked somewhere or the other. The wedding’s going crazy, the groom is hysterical, his politician dad is super-hysterical, and the wedding planner’s looking darker than a monsoon cloud. Hellzapoppin. Mercifully, there’s no Rowdy Rowthoreism here. Indeed, this negative virtue raises director Mapuskar’s attempt a notch above the average.

Why a Ferrari anyway? Mysterious. Why a speechling by the cricket kid about the Shivaji Park grounds being a great training ground and yet the persistence with the Lord’s obsession? Never mind. The intentions are wonderful, the result less so. By comparison, the cricket-themed Iqbal was far more involving and emotionally stirring.

Too lengthy, this Ferrari ride becomes excessively bumpy towards the end. Frequently, the background score is obtrusive. At most, Pritam’s songs are serviceable.

Shot extensively in Mumbai’s Kharegat colony, the Parsi ambience is authentic visually but that’s it. By the way, there’s another negative virtue: there’s no mention of dhansak, a must in every film with Parsis in centreframe.

Of the performances, Ritwik Sahore as the aspiring Sachin Tendulkar is endearing enough. Seema Bhargava is spirited. Sharman Joshi, with a buffed up body, isn’t quite convincing as a strait-laced Parsi man. The effort shows. Quite inevitably, Boman Irani’s performance is the most believable and expert of the lot.

Bottomwhine: It’s one of those. Toss a coin. Heads you go, tails, you don’t.