‘Toaster’ review: Another effortful, unfunny Rajkummar Rao comedy

In the week of her passing, Toaster has a doozy of an Asha Bhosle joke. Distraught Glenn (Abhishek Banerjee) has to address the small gathering at his mother’s funeral. To get their attention, he taps his glass: clink clinkclink, clink clinkclink. This is, of course, the opening of ‘Chura Liya Hai’, sung by Asha in Kati Patang, a rhythm so distinctive Glenn's not even finished when Ramakant (Rajkumar Rao) tells his wife, Shipla (Sanya Malhotra), “He’s going to sing.”

It’s worth noting that Toaster immediately follows its best joke with a flat one, which it underlines. Glenn announces he wants to say ‘two words’ about his late mother. But he can only blubber “Mumma” twice before he breaks down. Cue comic score. “True to his word,” Shilpa says. “He only said two words.” More comedy music.

Ramakant and Shilpa are tenants of the old lady, but he isn’t at the service to offer condolences. Once it’s over and the attendees start to chat, he slips into the kitchen, where the object of his obsession is sitting on a counter. A few days earlier, he’d reluctantly bought a 5,000-rupee toaster as a wedding gift for Shipla’s teacher’s daughter. Through a ridiculous series of events, this toaster makes its way to Glenn’s kitchen, where Ramakant calculates how best to boost it.

The reason for this—the reason anything happens in this film—is that Ramakant is a miser. A pathological miser, the kind who’ll save fuel by using another vehicle to tow his scooter. Forced into buying the toaster, he plans to return it to the store, a decision that takes him from lying to robbery and worse. He’s also not the only one who needs the toaster. Stashed in it is a data card with damaging footage of shady politician Amol Ambre (Jitendra Joshi), who sends a crooked cop, Balagode (Upendra Limaye), to deal with stoner Glenn.

Rao has been on a disastrous run since he decided his perfectly nice face needed an intervention (even Stree 2, the one good film since, wasn’t on the same level as the first installment). He’s done a few dramas and an action film, but mostly knocked out comedies, and they’ve been unwatchable. Moreover, he himself has been tough to watch, which is crazy if you remember the agile, intense actor he was before. Now he works too hard for his laughs, and it grates.

Daschaudary embraces grotesquerie—there’s a running constipation gag and a crude S&M subplot—but his film never feels exhilaratingly bold. There’s an old lady in the same apartment complex, played by Archana Puran Singh, who’s not what she seems. Whether her story, and performance, works for you might determine how you feel about the film. I thought it was a swing… and a miss.

Once in a while there’ll be good joke, a reminder that Parveez Shaikh wrote Queen (2013) and Akshat Ghildial wrote Badhaai Ho (2018). But the middle-of-the-road Hindi comedy has fallen considerably since then. None of the new films feel closely observed or lovingly made, like they were through the 2010s. And like most streaming films, especially on Netflix, Toaster looks awful, a mess of gaudy colours and bland framings.

Occasionally, there’s a funny line. Shilpa mocks one of Ramakant’s money-saving schemes dressed up as environmental concern by calling him “Greta Thunberg ke phoopha”. Amol tells the cop not to “play Drishyam Drishyam” with him. The running gag with Ramakant’s eccentric ringtone just about works. On the other hand, this is a juvenile enough comedy to substitute ‘lettuce in toilet’ for ‘lactose intolerant’, and to frame sexual assault as a joke. The film ends, fittingly, with a confused coda, a Pratik Gandhi cameo that illuminates nothing besides the largely dire state of Hindi comedy.

‘Toaster’ is on Netfllix.