Review: POSTER BOYS

Hyuck! Hyuck! Groan! Hahaha Heeheehee! Groan!

2 stars

Mini Review:

A remake of the Marathi film with the same name (it’s ‘Poshter Boys’), Shreyas Talpade take the story to a North Indian town called Jamgheti and adds a whole lot of silliness that is enjoyable. Three men from the village are featured on the government poster on the vasectomy program without their knowledge and it causes huge confusion and trouble for the three men. The comedy of errors gets really funny in places, and sags in others. It makes for a one time watch.

Main Review:

Sunny Deol of the ‘Dhai Kilo Ka Haath’ fame is Jagaavar Singh, a retired armyman, getting ready to get his sister engaged to a suitable family, when the father of the groom calls the engagement off claiming an ‘insult to honor’.

Bobby Deol is Vinay Sharma ‘Masterji’, teaches at a local school, and troubled and puzzled at his wife who wants a male child because ‘a boy carries the family name forward’ and suddenly dumps their two daughters on him and leaves him.

Shreyas Talpade is Arjun Singh is a local debt collector who wanders about with two violent sidekicks, threatening to beat up people if they did not pay up. The two sidekicks are really funny, and the trio is dressed in the most weird clothes (shiny glittery fake Ed Hardy type tees) and Arjun gets to wear the oddest jackets (a Michael Jackson poster pays tribute and we know about his choice of clothes). He’s in love with Riya, and his parents meet her family, but Riya’s father unexpectedly begins to yell at Arjun saying, ‘Why do you want to get married, you’re a gun without bullets…’

The three men realise that their photos have been photoshopped on a government poster on vasectomy.

The fun begins when they have to figure out why everyone in town is laughing at them. Initially the ‘gun without bullets’ metaphors get a tad grating, but the fun is how each man reacts to the situation. The fun is knowing the movies the actors have starred in: Bobby Deol’s phone ringtone is the title song from his film ‘Soldier’, Sunny Deol faces a baddie called Balwant Rai, who has a sidekick, and the famous dialog from ‘Ghayal’ is used really really well. Shreyas Talpade has the funniest ringtone ever:  a song where the lyrics are something like ‘I was missing you so i dialled my phone, I am your ice cream, you are my cone’...

But the best, the funniest role goes to Ashwini Kalsekar who plays a gynaecologist. She has the most spontaneous funny parts in the film. The others have to bank on their previous films and clothes (you will want to dress your whole family in the cute cat nightwear the way Bobby Deol and his family wears!). Ashwini Kalsekar has the funniest bits of the film, beginning with ‘Where have I seen you?’

The story takes you giggling to its most weird end, but it would be a shame to explain the situational comedy of men who have low sugar being threatened to be buried in a sugarcane farm, crowds chanting, ‘let him go!’ and the man pleading, ‘No, please don’t let me go!’

The comedy is not highbrow, but everyone has awesome comic timing. Go for the laughs. Be silly.


(the review appears on nowrunning dot com)