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Cast: Arshad Warsi, Irrfan Khan, Rajpal Yadav, Suresh Menon, Juhi Chawla
Director: Jaideep Sen
Rating:** ½
Here's a film with no pretensions. It's neither original, borrowing heavily from the 1989 Howard Zeiff directed The Dream Team (and we all know about the case around the music), nor is it anything but mindless, paisa vasool, entertainment. It even has two hot item numbers - by Shah Rukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan (the songs look good on the big screen).
Four inmates of a mental facility are taken on a field trip by their liberal doctor Sonali (Juhi Chawla) to see the India-England match in Mumbai (The Dream Team goes to see a ball game in New York).
Arshad Warsi plays the short tempered and violent Raja (convincing); Irrfan Khan is the obsessive compulsive Dr Mukherjee (loved the body language); Rajpal Yadav is Gangadhar, a patriot caught in a time warp (quirky and endearing); and Suresh Menon plays the abandoned Dabboo who seeks comfort in food, not words (unexpected).
When Dr Sonali suddenly disappears, the quartet, or 'krazzy 4', is left to fend for themselves in the madness of Mumbai and solve the mystery of their doctor's whereabouts.
If the writers and director intended to convey that the sane sometimes behave more insane than the clinically committed, the film fails to accomplish that.
Even though, just as the going was pretty good, they inserted a preachy scene at the climax with each character condemning ailments of contemporary society - from cleanliness to corruption.
All the action takes place on August 15 - but we see no rain or clouds, and though we see many flags, we also see booze flowing at a party. Last time I checked, Independence Day was still a dry day.
These are only some of the situations that demand a suspension of disbelief, as does most of the crime-solving escapade. Hard to believe that the mind-numbing One Two Three was written (and directed) by the same Ashwani Dhir, whose lines manage to elicit several laughs here. Warsi, Khan, Yadav and Menon's comic timing is well tuned.
uditaj@gmail.com
