Review: BUDHIA SINGH: BORN TO RUN

About A Boy... And His Coach

3 stars

Mini Review:

When a coach trains a five year old against all logic, is it for self publicity or has he really saved the boy from abject poverty and slavery? Does the government have any right over a young sportsperson’s need to run or did they do a right thing? This movie tackles all this and more by telling us the story of a five year old marathon runner Budhia Singh and his devoted coach Birinchi Das. Will shake you up.

Main Review:

When parents drive their kids from one class to another, expecting academic excellence, are they really pushing their own agenda or are they simply honing their child’s abilities? We don’t ask this question of ordinary folk whose dedication to their kids can be quite fierce, then why did we ridicule the dedication of Birinchi Das a coach who found an extra-ordinary talent in Budhia Singh?

Budhia Singh came into limelight as the youngest person ever to run marathons. Yes, not one, not two but 48 marathons. His life has been chronicled by Gemma Atwal, a UK born Indian marathoner who has made the award winning documentary ‘Marathon Boy’ on the relationship between coach Birinchi Das and Budhia.

This film is shot in a similar almost documentary style but with Manoj Bajpayee as Birinchi Das, the film is elevated into more than just a sports film. Manoj Bajpayee explores so many facets of the coach, and you automatically take sides with the coach and his little ‘wonder boy’. He rescues the boy from forced labour and ill-treatment and brings him home (he runs an orphanage and a judo school). Birinchi Das discovers a streak of stubbornness in the kid and uses that to train him to run. He loves the kid so much he officially adopts him. He sets up a trust fund in the boy’s name and secures the little boy’s future. He takes every charge - opportunistic, self-publicity seeker, monster, slave-driver - to his chin and continues to train the child. He is so dedicated to the child, he is torn when the government interferes and snatches Budhia away from him. Manoj Bajpayee brings so many nuances to a role that could have been a cardboard cutout stereotype of a mad sports coach. He even manages to make you baulk at his training methods which seem too harsh considering the boy is only five yars old.

The movie also stars Tilottama Shome, a fine actor, who plays Budhia’s mother. Initially, she looks like she is out of place in the poverty stricken neighborhood (too beautiful, you think), but then grows into the role of an avaricious woman who lies her way back into Budhia’s life for the money she thinks he’s making. Helping her realise the potential of her son as a source of money is actor Gopal K Singh, who plays (the creepiest role ever!) a local rabble rouser who incites the mother to take Budhia back. He is so accomplished, you will want to slap him!

One thing the movie fails to show is abject poverty the people are facing. That Budhia’s mother is forced to sell her kid because there is no money to buy daily essentials. That kids are dying every day of malnutrition and hunger. The reason why Budhia Singh’s rescue is so important. The film glosses over the poverty and when Manoj Bajpayee explains to the media, ‘One child dies every day, I have really rescued the boy!’ the explanation does not sound convincing.

The government sports department and the child welfare department look like crooks that they are and actor Chhaya Kadam who plays the self-absorbed child welfare minister is so good, you begin to believe she has no one else’s good in mind except her own.

The movie raises so many questions, it feels longer than the runtime of one hour and fifty minutes. But not in a bad way at all. In fact, Manoj Bajpayee is so good, you should watch the movie just for him. As parents you do the best for your kids, but where is the final line? Today Budhia Singh is being made to play cricket, sprint 100m at the government coaching facility. Will Coach Birinchi Das’s dream be un-fulfilled? Or has Budhia Singh really been rescued?

Review: DISHOOM

Good Clean Fun.

Delightful Watch.

3 stars

Mini Review:

If you said Hindi comedy, it meant ghastly sex comedies or completely stupid comedies which are loud and labeled ‘leave your brains behind’. Thankfully Dishoom is nothing like either. It’s pure fun. Silly, but fun. You’ll laugh at the funny lines, and you’ll like where the story is going. And everyone in the cast looks like they had a great time at the movies.

Main Review:

It’s time Hindi movies were written purely for fun. This is a buddy cop that is written by someone who put on a silly hat and drank from a happy cup when he sat down to write. So well done on that count Rohit Dhawan.

The story seems innocuous enough. An Indian batting legend is kidnapped by someone who wants him to…

Never mind. John Abraham of the awesome ‘Jisko goli nahi maar saki yeh (cigarette) kya maregi’ bod is here. A Sushma Swaraj lookalike has sent this Special Forces dude on a special mission to the Middle-East to...

Oh Lord be praised! There comes Varun Dhawan with a twinkle in his eye and really bad lines. He’s a rookie cop who forces himself into this mission and takes John to Mr Know It All, who according to Varun, ‘Agar 10th September ko America waalon ne phone uthaya hota toh 11 September nahi hua hota’. Now factually that’s like ‘Whaaaa?’ But you get the point.

All the events in the film are rather well connected even though you are distracted by Jacqueline Fernandez and her nimble fingers. She has a better role than she has ever performed. And considering she’s mostly used for ornamental parts, this is a good role choice.

The movie is fun, and fast paced. The funny parts make you smile even when they’re silly lines like, ‘Arre Bradman, tu toh Byomkesh nikla!’

Watch the movie with friends and laugh at Varun Dhawan’s antics and Jacqueline’s sass. And yes, John Abraham’s body.

(this review appears on nowrunning dot com)

review: The BFG

The BFG Movie is Charming in Parts, Mostly Boring.

2.5 stars

Mini Review:

Steven Spielberg sort of fumbles with Roald Dahl classic and yet mark Rylance’s delighful, sensitive, gentle performance turns this movie into a very sweet little film for the family. The fantasy scenes do remind us of how amazing the director can be. But with Hollywood’s penchant of taking away all the dark elements and the story remains in the easy to forget zone. This is not ET The Extra Terrestrial.

Main Review:

Mark Rylance’s crinkles should be declared national treasure. He’s amazing as a shy giant who is the runt of the giant world. He’s what they called ‘Scrum-diddly-umptuous!’

Compared to him Sophie seems like someone who you’d like to slap. She’s a little annoying as most kids are. We don’t feel an instant connect with her like we do with Mowgli or Jack Frost or even with Paddington Bear.

The story of a friendly giant who is an anomaly among giants is a good one. He is so gentle, he collects dreams and pipes them into people while they are sleeping. The upside down world is beautiful, and so is his workshop. Such a visual treat this is.

The wonder though, is in the reading of the original. Where else would you find names for giants like Freshlumpeater, Bloodbottler, Meatdripper and Gizzardguzzler? As kids we called each other those names and the fun was to make up names and pretending we were drinking Frobscottle if one of us farted.

The movie has fun Frobscottle effects visually, but the kids today don’t get the fun of naming silly names. The parents in the audience - who have read the book - will enjoy this and many other Dahl ideas. Others will just gawp at the brilliant special effects. I came away with mixed feelings, and though the film might help more kids buy more books, most might just let Hollywood do the reading for them. Of the Dahl books that have been made into movies, this one falls a tad short of the greatness and lovability of the book.


(this review appears on nowrunning dot com)

Review: LOVE KE FUNDAY

Tweaking Their Title Song:

'Love Ke Funday (Likhne Walon Ko)

Padenge Dande'

½ star

Mini Review:

If you had no hope for this generation of high-heel wearing clone women (not unlike stepford wives) and muscle-bound brainless young sex-starved men, then you would be right. If this is where the movies are taking us, then it might be like… Er… Like to Nowhere, ya!

Main Review:

What a waste this supposed lessons on love turned out to be! Waste of time, waste of footage, and a certain career suicide of four men and four women. Wait… Was it four men and seven women? Or was it five men and five women? It did not matter because all the young men were shown to be so crass and so sex starved you did not want to look at them on screen for too long or you might catch something slimy.

The women were like clones. Dressed up in really short, ghastly and garish clothes that were either so ill-fitting or tight fitting, their assets were spilling over and under and in all possible directions. They teeter-tottered in impossibly high heels (even inside their homes) and really bad make up.

The ‘funday’ or love lessons these couples learn are: you don’t have to be married to love each other, that you could fall in love with your best friend and if the audience hasn’t drowned in their own vomit at the really ghastly Hindi, English and Hinglish accents they would have learnt more.

That women talk only of love and sex whenever they are with another girl. In the office, in ‘discs’ (Gah! Their word for a ‘disco’ or ‘discotheque’) and even on the street with strangers.

That young women are just as desperate for sex as young men. Don’t ask.

That young men spout ‘Love sau ladkiyon ke saath, ishq ek se bhi nahi!’ on the phone with another girl when they are making out with one girl, and the girls are okay with it. Not one woman slaps him. No evidence of self respect or finer feelings there.

That young men also ‘hook up’ their friends with girls, and the boys are okay with descriptions like ‘Mercedes hai, maruti nahi’. The girls like being called ‘Mercedes’.

Okay, just one more. That pubs have pole dancers who move from pole to pole as the camera pans from one table to another. Pubs with pole dancers? What?!

The whole film is shot like a montage (of nightmares!) or episodes. The young men and the girls are such awful clones you get confused who’s who and who’s with who. And in the end everything they do negates every premise they start with. The lad who insists that he does not believe in marriage ends up on his knees proposing to the girl friend. And yes, there’s a girl who is ready to divorce the lad because he smokes (her dad died of lung cancer), who accepts him when he chooses her over cigarettes. Wow. You emerge from the theater shaking the memory of such scenes, and then you see a stamp on the poster: Love is the extreme sympathy that leads to bed.

Gobsmacked.




(this review appears on nowrunning dot com)

Review: GHOSTBUSTERS

Ain't Afraid Of No Ghosts, But Of Remakes!

2.5 stars

Mini Review:

When you’re too young to remember the original Ghostbusters, or too old to remember the original, comes this mad ‘all woman’ protagonists version. Interesting idea, and ‘hyuck-hyuck’ funny in parts, and despite the title song being repeated often, it makes you look at the time again and again.

Main Revview:

Most of the people who remember the original Ghostbusters will sigh in relief...Oooh! There is Sigourney Weaver turning into Zuul already when you watch the family murdering ghost right away. She’s beautiful too, and you can imagine where the movie is going…

But no! The movie has other plans. Melissa McCarthy and Kirsten Wiig the paranormal physicists reunite reluctantly and the third in this plot is Kate McKinnon, who plays the mad scientist/engineer so madly, you know she’s the one who is going to get you laughs. I loved her mad sense of style and her James Bond Q gone crazy role. That established, we are then suddenly thrown into a situation where you meet the villain.

In a city which does not care if you are dressed crazily or are genuinely nuts, there are sudden sighting of ghostly apparitions. We are introduced to Leslie Jones who is their client and when the trio step into the subway with the client we take a first look at the Proton Pack and the best homage scene: a vandal with a spray can...  

If you are too young to care about the hullabaloo over Bill Murray and Dan Ackroyd, you’ll simply enjoy the repartee between the women, who (i must concede) share a pretty good vibe and can be funny. McCarthy’s obsession with soup is fun and so is Chris ‘the body’ Hemsworth. Thor shows up as the dumb blonde secretary and at first irritates you with his ‘because I have a body therefore I must be stupid’ role, but he gets funnier by the scene. So much so that you will imagine dumb but beautiful people in your own life posing with a saxophone.

The last fight between the ghostbusters and the ghosts coming into New York via a vortex created by

the villain goes on and on and on and you take refuge in watching dance skills of Chris Hemsworth again. I wish Melissa McCarthy and Kirsten Wiig had loosened up a little and tried less harder to compete with the originals. The movie moves from flat to funny and back so many times, you are just glad the movie ends with the song that has stayed with you for so many years.

review: BAD MOMS

Not 'Bad Moms' But 'Bad Script'

1.5 stars

Mini Review:

If you are not the perfect mom, then you must be bad. And not just bad, you have to be vodka swilling, lecherous woman whose home should be in a perpetual mess. It’s a great idea gone so wrong, the combined talents of Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, Kathryn Hahn and Christina Applegate cannot save the film.

Main Review:

Mila Kunis the quintessential harried mom. Ferrying her kids from activity to activity, doing all their homework and school projects, handling a sales job and a slob of a husband, keeping house and cooking fabulous, healthy meals. All this in high heels.

Take a moment to look at your own life. Woah! You know so many women (and men) like Mila Kunis but it’s just that they don’t look so good doing it.

One awful day and her beautiful home falls apart. She realises that things need to change. And that she needs to learn to say, ‘No’ to her kids and family and her job and only then will she get some respite.

Such a great idea it is, until we realise that the only way out of this perfect world is to create a cliche ridden escape. Mila Kunis and two other harried moms (Kristen Bell and Kathryn Hahn) go drinking and shopping and eating and drinking and leching at school dads and drinking and then drinking some more in order to find dutch courage to date.

Meanwhile the kids behave even more obnoxiously, and something inside you snaps. You wish the mom would just react like the mom in the Indian play ‘Ma Retire Hoti Hai’ (it has been staged in many Indian languages and each has been succcessful).

Christina Applegate plays the villainous ambitious PTA head mom very well and is a great foil to the trio of bad moms. A surprise appearance of Martha Stewart is a good thing!

The movie earns a star because it tackles a very real subject in an almost hilarious, almost serious way. The only problem is that it is so predictable you could barf.

(this review appears on nowrunning dot com)

Review: MADAARI

Too Loud, Too Long And Too Melodramatic

To Be Anything More Than Mildly Interesting.

2.5 stars

Mini Review:

An eye for an eye to get the corrupt politicians to own up to their mistakes, is a great idea. And we don’t doubt that Irrfan Khan is able to carry the movie on his shoulders alone. But once you know the ‘eye for an eye’ motive, the thrill wears off and you labor through the how is he going to get caught by the police. It’s too long, too loud and too melodramatic. Watch only for Irrfan Khan.

Main Review:

If you’ve watched the trailer, they gave away the plot: Will Minister sahab ka beta be treated like a joota banane wale ka beta?

So you know it’s a kidnap drama because they show it in the trailer. The first half goes in showing an unkempt Irrfan Khan keeping an eye on the home minister’s kid who runs out of the boarding school every night to savor street food in Dehradun. Then Irrfan Khan kidnaps the home minister’s kid and throws the system in chaos. The system depends on the skills of a police officer Nachiket (Jimmy Shergill in a role he has played many many times), and even though Nachiket is right, he has to fight self-promoting individuals - politicians as well as security services - to help find the boy.

It is clear that Irrfan Khan has not thought the kidnapping through because we the audience are subjected to him dragging a reluctant kid in bus journeys, and train journeys and truck journeys and by foot… We meander everywhere as aimlessly as the duo and even though to sympathise with Irrfan Khan’s loss, you fast lose empathy. Where is the movie going?

Now don’t get me wrong, Irrfan Khan is a good actor and the one scene where is sitting at the hospital when the child is being treated for food poisoning, and another hospital scene after he discovers that his own child is dead are award worthy and a star each have been given in this review just for these two scenes.

But how long can you watch him change clothes, journey with the kid, move from one place to another while the helpless cops say, ‘He is moving from one place to another which makes it difficult for us to catch him.’

And when you see this for most of the film, your mind starts wandering into the funny zone. How come he has internet in the middle of the desert? Forwarded Whatsapp jokes crowd your head that maybe the service providers have a limp net service and reach in the cities, but in remote places the Airtel girl finds net connection! You smile at the thought of Irrfan being the Airtel girl, and then the smile vanishes.

The predictable end (which repeats the footage borrowed from all the protest marches you have seen on TV) shows corrupt politicians to be spineless and admitting rather quickly to, ‘Yes, I have taken bribes and will continue to take bribes…’ you just want the movie to end. The background score which was decent in the beginning has become so loud you wish you had ear-plugs, the dialog becomes so bombastic and preachy you want to say, you’re telling us nothing news about corruption, so stop going on and on and on…

Had this movie been short and succinct, the rating would have been through the roof.  The child actor does a decent job and Irrfan is good too when he’s not hamming the ‘I’ve been wronged!’ part. The movie is average because there is nothing subtle and instead of coming away with any hope for change, you come away as if you have been attacked by a sledgehammer for almost three hours.    

(this review appears on nowrunning dot com)

Review: M CREAM

Stupidathon

½ star

Mini Review:

A pretentious little film that’s so cliche ridden, you wish the four friends who have set out for the hills in search of a ‘legendary’ drug to smoke up, fall off some cliff.

Main Review:

‘This film is about drugs and alcohol, but it will be in ‘art’ space.’

The moment that is decided, then you also know the fate of the four protagonists of the film whose stories are so hysterically mundane, you find yourself napping.

Napping, opening eyes, finding nothing has really happened, napping, opening eyes, discovering empty coffee cup in your hand cannot keep you awake.

And there’s plenty to keep you awake: poetry, sex, views of the Himalayas. The film fails here too.

The poetry is something you might here at open mic gigs at pubs: ‘we are but sunshine on blades of grass’. You want to mow that lawn where the grass is growing!

The sex is so tacky, not even a soft focus long shot of naked Ira Dubey is enough to make you happy.  

There’s not a single breath-taking view of the Himalayas, and anyone who’s been up there in Uttarakhand knows the mountains are gob-stoppingly awe-inspiring. That’s because the four are shown ‘tripping’ on LSD in ways only film people know how. You have seen such ‘scenes’ in many b-grade Bollywood masala films where they want to show how heroine or the sister of the hero has been ‘drugged’ by the villain in order to rape them… You cannot unsee this ‘throw your head back and sway in slow motion’ type acting.

Neither can you understand how Imaad Shah is supposed to be a wonderful actor when all he does is throws his head back to squint into the sun (even if the scene is set in the evening), and spout supposed intelligent stuff like, ‘You’re a hypocritical dumbo’. For someone shown to be drinking rum straight from the bottle at all times, it’s a miracle he wakes up in the morning to then drink tea. And the whisky drinking scene with ‘save the trees’ activist is so bad, phone videos made for Facebook of Goa trips are nicer.

And yes, the activist is a ‘foreign’ journalist, the drug infused people infesting the hills are all ‘foreigners’ with backpacks who start a ‘German bakery’ even if they are from Louisiana, the four protagonists too are stereotypes: one is a rich girl with a farmhouse and a jeep, the boyfriend is a photographer who tries too hard to be cool and drunk, the third is a lad with hair and bottle of rum in his hand and writes poetry in a diary, pages of which he mostly tears and crumples (someone told them poets/writers crumple pages in little balls all around them), and the fourth is a girl who is an upright ‘I don’t smoke but I can pass the doobie’ type person, who wants to interview Tibetan exiles… If you think these are cliches, then imagining suffering their drunken scenes and smoked up scenes and insult first kiss later scenes, and driving through winding roads and getting lost scenes…

And when they do reach more guitar playing firang circles who are happy to pass the chillum, the movie ends. Before expletives escape your mildly surprised, lulled by boredom head, you are helped by someone who informs you that the film has been around in cans for the last three or four years. Maybe it should have stayed there.

(this review appears on nowrunning dot com)

Review: STAR TREK BEYOND

Not an ordinary trek, but an action-packed roller-coaster ride!

3.5 stars

Mini Review:

The Enterprise and its fabulous crew are back in a crackling, action-packed adventure in a nebula far far away. And this time the villains are so scary and so bad, they destroy everything we love about Star Trek movies. But can they keep the good guys down?

Main Review:

Pick up your popcorn and other treats before the curtain goes up on this fast and furious space adventure of the Starship Enterprise and its young crew Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg and Karl Urban - Captain Kirk, Spock, Scotty and Dr. ‘Bones’ McCoy who have to face the evil Krall and his bees…

The movie opens on a melancholy note and we realise that both Kirk and Spock are planning on quitting. Before you can exclaim, ‘No way!’ you are hurtling through space into a nebula where the war is spectacular and the camera work so incredible you’d think you are on a roller coaster.

When Enterprise is forced to land on the alien planet, of course there is a cool alien who helps the good guys escape. Simon Pegg, who plays Scotty, has written a juicy role for himself and the engineering tricks involved really add fun to the already cool adventure.

The dizzying ride through Yorktown, the alien M-class planet Altamid are so cool, you don’t have time to take those 3D glasses off to breathe. Zaylah the alien is a good addition to the cast and I loved her spunk. There are also reminders of old Star Trek movies and it gives solace to trekkie hearts, starting with Kirk delivering a symbol of peace to a race of aliens…

The impossible camera angles competes well with the music and the repartee between McCoy and Spock keep that smile plastered on your face. The director’s experience with The Fast & The Furious movies make sure that the action is superb too.

Anton Yelchin, who plays Chekov, died tragically after the movie was made, and it is good to see his name in credits along with Leonard Nimoy’s. They will be missed.

(this review appears on nowrunning dot com)

Review: KABALI

Kahaani Ki Bali!

2 stars

Mini Review:

Rajinikant is such a phenomenon today that he now has to live up to that larger than life persona in the movies as well. He cannot be shown eating pakodas at a roadside stall, calling the baddies and saying, ‘parashakti hero da!’ or be shown beating up politicians who insult his sister while his auto rickshaw driver friends watch in awe or even drunk dance after asking the nadaswaram goshti to perform at a dhaba… This movie tries very hard to capture that magic, but the script stutters and fails, despite his ‘bahut khoob!’

Main Review:

At one time Rajini films would be known for his entrance, whether he appears as Baasha the don coming up below stairs to get into his car, or appear (cigar first) as Padaiyappa to save the ancestral house… Now the audience yelled and hooted and clapped and whistled because of the nostalgia. We see him reading a book in prison… that’s too tame a first look. Fans did not want him to see change prison gear for a suit, we just wanted to see him stride out to a Neruppa da welcome!

The pace of the movie is so slow you wish there were more action set pieces. There’s over an hour of telling the audience how he became the leader of the Indian plantation laborers in Malaysia and how the other leader took Kabali under his wing and how Kabali fell in love with a worker who becomes his wife.

The rivalry that turns into hatred between the Chinese workers and Indians is understandable, if you know the history of immigrant laborers. But from fighting for equal rights to turning into mafia is a transition that is a tad unbelievable. And even here, the morals have to be high. No dealing in drugs and girls. They good gondas. Even if we take the story as is, there are too many choppy edits and you’re saying, ‘Whaaaat?!’

And the flashbacks! Oh, the flashbacks! So badly done, you’d think Kabali’s wife Roopa (Radhika Apte) is pregnant for a lot longer than women usually are.

I’d take the handpump ripping scene from Baasha (which Sunny Deol copied in the Gadar in 2001), the pulling down of the swing in Padaiyappa, the tears in Mullum Mallarum as he bids farewell to his beloved Valli any day over the obvious ‘Rajini the super star is so great he does good by rehabilitating drug users’

You ask, where is the story? We’re all fans here! We don’t have to see him as a pale shadow of Baasha, we want him to make us want to dance in the aisles. We want him to walk to the frame and break a coconut with his head and dance ‘naan autokaaran autokaaran’ or at least a happy horse and buggy song as he did in Muthu. This movie just makes you sigh for Manik Baasha’s super chair scene where he kicks Albert’s butt. In fact every time Kabali sits on a chair, you know a gun or steel rod is going to appear from his sleeve so he can shoot or hit the bad guy in front. And yes, the audience is going to hear a lecture about doing the right thing.

The Chinese bad guy is overdressed and his dialog is so stilted you start wondering if the table where he eats his soup came from Inception.

Yes. The film exhausts everyone. As a Rajini fan, I have come away feeling demoralised. Was it the language? There is a Tamil, Telugu as well as the Hindi version. But it’s not that. It’s the lack of a story. It’s like a fanboy film. Is that why the star laughs at it so much?

(This review appears on nowrunning dot com)

Review: GREAT GRAND MASTI

Na Sex Hai, Na Comedy. This Bhoot Tale Is Not Titillating!

1 star

Mini Review:

Amar, Meet and Prem are back on the screen with the third instalment of their almost sexcapade. This time the story is set in a haunted house. But no matter what the setting is, the comedy remains shallow: the jokes do not go beyond buxom women and male genitalia. It could have been very funny had they aimed at ‘Carry On’ series, but they do not go beyond bad Whatsapp jokes.

Main Review:

Everything in this movie is so obvious, they could have easily called it, ‘Men Who Stare At Boobs’. With due apologies to the women reading, let me continue. Staring at female bosoms may be the pastime of young men, but a two hour movie, is stretching the joke too far.

I will be the first person to say, yes, there are five instances which show us how clever the writing is and what this movie could have been, but it remains in the realm of playing the piano with a viagra induced erection.

So the three lads (Riteish Deshmukh, Aftab Shivdasani and Vivek Oberoi) land up in a haunted house in Doodhwadi (don’t ask! It has exactly all the visuals desperate for sex lads can dream up). They are confronted by a sexy woman (Urvashi Rautela) who says she can fulfill all their wishes. By now you know what their reaction will be: the cartoon dog panting, salivating at the sight of a steak. Not again you say, but the woman turns out to be a ghost who insists that she needs to be ‘serviced’ or she won’t let them leave.

Here is where you see a flash of wit. ‘Mere shauk poore karo or main tum ko shock par shock doongi.’ The aural pun roughly translates to ‘Fulfill my ‘shauk’ (desires) or I will give you ‘shock’ (electric ones, because there are no surprises here)’

That brings me to the four other funny lines in the film. Watch out for them because they are thrown in casually as though they did not know that they were funny. But they are funnier than woman stuffing cash into her blouse. Here are the funny lines:

1. ‘Bada aaya Kambal Haasan!’ said to a man with a blanket (Kambal) who tries to deter the three lads from going to the haunted house.
2. The same blanket clad man is called Ramsay, after the famous Ramsay Brothers who made cult horror movies. Since he is telling tales of a haunted house, the joke is awesome, truly.
3. ‘Gaon mein wow!’ the lads say when they imagine buxom, scantily clad women in Doodhwadi.
4. When the two lads are suggesting the third look into the mirror because the ghost doesn’t have an image, he says, ‘Aaina chhodo, muaaina karne do!’ Clever aural pun on mirror (aaina) and ‘ckecking out’ (muaaina).

Am I spoiling the movie for the audience? Not at all. The movie has been created for lads who stare at body parts. That’s why the three wives of the heroes are reduced to being just bodies. That’s why you have to suffer the long standing jokes at the level of Antakshari Baba who has watermelon coming out of his…

When will we make a smart sex comedy, I wonder? Even if we copy Mel Brooks, it will be brilliant. His movies had erections and buxom women, but no tables rose like here. He was hiding in a harem dressed as a eunuch in a feathered skirt, and he is discovered because the feathers fly when he sees the buxom queen. Those movies were funny. These face pulling men who shake as though being mildly electrocuted are not funny. They’re just amateur cartoonish creatures.

(this review appears on nowrunning dot com)