Written by: Muhammad Suhayb
Posted on: December 16, 2022 | 
Iman Ali as Leena and Farhan Saeed as Kaka Sahib in Tich Button
A rom-com drama, ‘Tich Button’, comes out as a good addition to movies from Lollywood. However, in the post ‘Legend of Maulat Jutt’ period, the movie did not have much impact. The setting, the comedy, the dialogues and the climax, all had the nineties feel about them. The movie revolves around a typical Punjabi family where grandparents, parents, uncles and aunts run the lives of everyone. All decisions are taken by the elders and the younger generation is not even allowed to socially mingle by choice. A snotty aunt, her gorgeous daughter, a useless hero and a fake ‘vilayti’ (English) memsahib are part of the main cast.
Feroze Khan as Saqib and Iman Ali as Leena in Tich Button
The story is a crossover between Bollywood’s classic DDLJ (Dilwale Dulhania le Jayenge) and Kartik Aryan’s Sonu ki Titu ki Sweety. The bromance between Saqib (Feroze Khan) and Kaka (Farhan Saeed), 'the Tich and the Button’, has shades of Sonu ki Titu ki Sweety, while rest of the characters are virtually taken from DDLJ, although the genders are swapped. For Kajol’s Simran, we have Farhan Saeed’s Kaka, a local boy with a heart of gold. After the death of his father, he is raised by his uncle, Saqib’s father, a role played by Sohail Ahmed. Kaka is willing to do anything for Saqib, who is none other than the expression-less Feroze Khan. There is absolutely no improvement in his acting. His presence only hurts the film, as many people stayed away from watching an actor with allegations of beating his wife on screen. Shahrukh Khan’s Raj is Iman Ali’s Leena here, who has a ‘cool’ mother Pummy, played by Marina Khan. In DDLJ, it was Anupam Kher’s Papi, who was always longing for his son. Leela is someone who cannot take orders from her superiors, be it her mother or bosses. For the second lead, TV actor Sonya Hussain is used in a character who is a complete misfit for her role, since she is known for playing powerful roles on television. Her character Shakeela was unnecessarily stretched to fill the duration of the film and her performance had a huge influence of Sri Devi’s Kaajal Verma from Judaai. A typical drama girl, Shakeela played a perfect ‘Phupi ki beti’ (aunt’s daughter), and was no different from those girls who do the same roles in Pakistani dramas.
Iman Ali as Leena and Sonya Hussyn as Shakeela in Tich Button
Giants like Qavi Khan and Sohail Ahmed are restricted to small roles, with half-cooked characters; veterans Samiya Mumtaz and Marina Khan ended up playing the mothers of the lead cast, with little work done on their background stories.
Sohail Ahmed and Gul-e-Rana in Tich Button
The screenplay by TV writer Faiza Iftikhar had a major problem, as many scenes simply dragged. The script could have been crispier and some scenes are totally unnecessary to the plot. It is difficult to believe that Saqib has never seen the gorgeous Shakeela, despite being cousins of same age. Though not as loud as the Punjab-centric movies of the 80s, it is a good addition to movies that have lots of color, a predictable story, passable dialogues and some very good songs. The cinematography of the movie gets all the points, with the village life captured beautifully. Excellent direction by Qasim Ali Mureed, while the eventual product could have been way better had it been released on time. Mureed has had a few big hits television dramas, and he did justice here as well.
Director Qasim Ali Mureed and producer Urwa Hocane
Whatever problems the movie has, it has dominated the box office, which proves that entertaining movies can come out from Pakistan, even in such dreary times. If you have time on hand and money in your pocket, go and watch Tich Button in the cinema.
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