- Riteish Deshmukh – Mauli and Abhay Singh Nimbalkar ‘Prince’
- Sharad Kelkar – Sangram, Mauli’s first cousin
- Radhika Apte – Kavita, Mauli’s love interest
- Tanvi Azmi – Sumitra Devi, Mauli and Prince’s Aai
- Uday Tikekar – Pratap Singh Nimbalkar, Mauli and Prince’s Baba
- Sanjay Khapare – Sakha, Mauli and Prince’s friend
- Aaditi Pohankar – Nandhini, Prince’s love interest
- Salman Khan – Bhau
- Genelia D’souza
The film is based on a couple, Pratap Singh Nimbalkar and his wife Sumitra Devi. They are extremely caring people and assist farmers by providing them with the required land and shelter. However, Sumitra Devi doesn’t have any child despite several years of marriage, hence she was frowned upon by the villagers.
Seeing her condition, her maid, one day, suggested her to pray to Lord Vithoba in Pandharpur, which was considered by the villagers to be a holy location on Maharashtra. Although she declined the suggestion at first, later Sumitra Devi promised that she would give away her first son in case she was blessed with kids. Her prayers were listened to and she was soon pregnant, and she gave her husband the good news. However, when he heard about the condition, he flew to London since he didn’t believe in such rituals. Finally, she gave birth and informed Pratap that she won’t give away their son; and her husband soon returned hearing this good news. The child was named Abhay Singh and his nickname was Prince.
25 years later, Abhay returned home after studying abroad. During that time, his paternal cousin, Sangram, who was an extremely greedy person started terrorizing the peasants in order to take away their lands. When Pratap warned him, he was murdered by Sangram and soon he killed his son, Prince as well. Sumitra Devi goes to the temple and starts accusing God for her fate, and that’s when she met Mauli.
It turns out that twins were born, and she gave away Mauli that day, keeping Abhay. Finally, Mauli comes to know of all this and finally takes revenge upon Sangram for his misdeeds.
Lai Bhari is an action potboiler and a typical commercial entertaining film. This film managed to become the highest-grossing film of its time, breaking the record of another Marathi film, Maherchi Saadi, which quite surprisingly retained this title for a total of 17 years.
The film consists of all the elements one can find in a commercial movie – rich family, evil greedy villain, the murder of innocent people, revenge by the protagonist and lastly a god to help them all. Besides, there are quite a few twists in the movie, which helps keep the curiosity alive. The cameo appearances of Genelia and Salman Khan also helped this film greatly.
Part of the success of the movie can also be attributed to the director of the movie, Nishikant Kamat. The storytelling has been impressive, to say the least, and the one-liners throughout the movie are hard-hitting.
Ritesh also took a calculated risk by venturing into the Marathi films, from Bollywood; but it can be safely stated that his efforts have succeeded since became the highest-grossing Marathi film when it was released. He acted brilliantly throughout the film, and his brand image has definitely played a contributing role in the movie’s success.
All in all, Lai Bhari with its screenplay, dialogues, acting combined has all the elements of a good commercial film.