Toaster review: Rajkummar Rao serves dark comedy right, crisp and twisted

Toaster review: A Rs 5,000 toaster sets off a chain of chaos in this sharp, tightly controlled dark comedy led by Rajkummar Rao's quietly brilliant performance. Smart, strange and consistently engaging, the film balances humour with menace.

In Short

• Rajkummar Rao shines in Toaster with subtle humour
• A trivial toaster gift spirals into chaos
• Sanya Malhotra energises the film as Shilpa

Toaster gets a lot right - tone, timing, and the tricky balance of comedy with menace. It's a lean dark comedy that knows exactly how far to stretch a joke before snapping it into something more sinister.

Rajkummar Rao plays Ramakant, a small, tight-fisted man with an almost disarming normalcy. Rao doesn't push for laughs. He does something even smarter: letting them emerge from behaviour. There's a familiar ease to how he becomes Ramakant - the gait, the hesitations, the calculations, but there's also something faintly off, a strangeness that lies just beneath the surface. Ramakant, a miser, almost everytime, accidentally walks into chaos and then refuses to leave it.

The premise is deliciously absurd. A Rs 5,000 toaster, gifted at a wedding which is later called off, becomes the centre of an escalating mess. When the couple lands in the middle of a murder investigation, Ramakant's stubborn fixation on retrieving his gift sets off a chain of mishaps. What begins as petty obsession becomes something far more tangled. Secrets pile up, motives blur, and the toaster, of all things, becomes the thread tying it all together.

The ensemble cast understands the assignment. No one overplays the eccentricity. Sanya Malhotra's Shilpa, with her fascination for crime, brings a restless energy, while Archana Puran Singh stands out as Mrs Pherwani - unpredictable, watchful, and commanding the film's most interesting turns. Abhishek Banerjee, Seema Pahwa, Farah Khan, and Upendra Limaye round out a cast that works in rhythm. It's a rare line-up where everyone seems aware of the film's pitch and stays within it.

What works particularly well is the film's sense of control. It gives space where needed and never loses its momentum. The writing leads, the performances follow. There's no attempt to decorate the film with unnecessary gloss. It relies on character and situation instead.

That said, Toaster doesn't land perfectly. The ending leans a little too heavily into melodrama, ignoring the sharpness it builds so carefully. It isn't a major issue, but it does dilute some of the bite. You are left entertained, but also aware that it could have ended on a more unsettling note.

Director Vivek Daschaudhary seems to be enjoying himself, and that energy carries through. The film stays within confined spaces - apartments, familiar interiors, and yet never feels static. The pacing does the heavy lifting; events happen quickly enough to keep you hooked without making you feel dragged along.

Toaster looks even better when you realise that dark comedies are not forgiving. It demands precision in everything - writing, performances and edit. The film largely meets that demand. It understands that the humour must come from discomfort, not decoration. Even its visual choices, like the interplay of light and shadow in major moments, add to the mood without calling attention to themselves.

There's also a playful self-awareness. A fleeting wedding cameo and Rao's throwaway line, "Mere muskuraane ki wajah toh tum ho," make you get the inside joke.

Toaster is sharp, odd, and consistently engaging. It doesn't try to be bigger than it is, and that works in its favour. Not flawless, but confidently made, and easily one of the more watchable Hindi offerings on Netflix in a while.

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