Release Date: 29th April, 2011

Runtime: 120 mins

Director: Shashant Shah

Writer: Arshad Sayed

Cast: Vinay Pathak, Lara Dutta

Language: Hindi

 

Rating: 2/5

 

Would John Hughes ever have imagined that his 80s’ comedy about two mismatched travel companions could be remade in an entirely Indian context? Would he have foreseen what our skewed understanding of creativity and our brazen disregard for copyrights can accomplish? Our film industry can turn any movie into a template to which Indian masala can be fitted and added randomly like a roadside fusion chaat.

 

Much like Vinay Pathak, ever since Bheja Fry (also copied), he has turned into a template of the middle-class Indian as an urban outsider. He plays the vulgar, obnoxious, silly street-level Indian we are ever eager to leave behind as we go up our skyscrapers into a modern, shining India. But you can’t ignore him. He sticks to you like a leech with feelings, mostly good natured and innocently devastating.

 

Counterpoint to his everyman in this film is Lara Dutta, playing an investment banker on heels. Throughout the film, she carries off not just a well-tailored skirt, but also a host of swanky city stereotypes like economic arrogance, intolerance for dhaba food, inability to ‘go’ in the wilderness, fear of cockroaches, animals and people, and discomfort with Hindi.

 

It is in the meeting of these two Indias, and their journey together through a third India (between Jaipur and Delhi) that the story rests. It is not as lofty as it sounds. The friction between and eventual acceptance of stereotypes forms the meat of the movie. But sadly, that is all there is to it.

 

Stereotype meets stereotype and travels through a stereotypical idea of India, replete with corrupt officials, camel-drawn carts, power-crazy Jats and Bengalis carrying rossogullas.

 

The climax has an uplifting message about having a positive attitude. It should put a smile on your face, hopefully, because the rest of the film doesn’t.