Movie Review: ‘Pagalpanti’

By Neha Bora

Masala movies are the ultimate treat for bollywood fans, even in the era of patriotic, biopics, realistic cinema. A movie with 3 dance numbers, 1 item song and lots of over the top Dialogues and action sequences finds a large chunk of audience for itself. But Anees Bazmee is a visionary filmmaker, and this time he has made something that even he cannot watch. Watched Anees Bazmee’s ‘Pagalpanti‘ which has a humongous cast of John Abraham, Arshad Warsi, Anil Kapoor, Saurabh Shukla, Illena dcruz, urvashi rautela, kriti kharbanda, inaamulhaq and Pulkit Samrat .

With a cast like this an average movie goer can expect some good laughs. But I only started laughing after 2 hours in the film not because the script elevated in the second half but because it went beyond my expectations in being ridiculous. We can’t talk about the plot. No one in the world except Anees Bazmee can explain or understand the storyline. After watching Pagalpanti I am sure that he is much better at pitching movies to producers than directing them.

So let’s jump to “whatever I saw on screen”. Chandu (Pulkitsamrat), Junkie ( Arshad Warsi) and Raj kishor(John Abraham) are three friends who are struck with bad luck in every business because of Raj’s kundli. But still they are able to convince every second person to invest their money in their startups. And during one of these failure they get connected to WiFi. WiFi is Anil Kapoor’s character name who is the brother in law of gangster Raja Sahab (Saurabh Shukla).

To recover their loss both of them hire these “3 idiots” for some really bizzare jobs like tasting the food to check whether it has poison or being dummy Raja Sahabto avoid attack from enemies. Meanwhile chandu falls in love with Raja Sagan’s daughter Jhanvi played by Kriti Kharbanda.

But Anees Bazmee has one more sub plot for the audience. Suddenly you see inalmullhaq on screen playing “Neeraj Modi”. The defaulter who left india after taking loans worth billions.

So Neeraj modi is the mastermind who is above all the gangsters. And he lends money to Raja Sahab and his rival Tulli-Bulli to double them. But because Raj kishore along with his badluck is in the house all the money is burned to ashes. This is the point till where I knew who am I and where am I…But after this neither I nor the movie knew where we are heading.

Because you get to see a haunted house where a hired “chudail” played by Urvashi Rautela is scaring people. And then somehow Raj finds out that this haunted place is Neeraj Modi’s black money storage. And then something happens, then again something happens and they rob all the money from him.

When Neeraj Modi comes to know about this he summons WiFiand asks him to bring his money back. Anil kapoor goes to John for money and…And then you get the biggest plot twist ever in the history of Indian cinema. Raj was not doing all this for his own luxury…He was doing this for Hindustan and “Bharat kijanta“, because Neeraj Modi is the “Gaddar” and John doesn’t spare them even in a comedy movie.

And then you witness one of the most horrible climax ever where gangsters are making samosa and jalebi in a villa, CGI lions are roaming around and wondering where they have come, just like the audience. And all the things that you have not seen in house full 4.

I can bet, this is the most descriptive post about this movie that you can find. Even the wikipedia page of the movie has only 3 sentences for it’s premises.

Talking about the performances, John Abraham enters in the frame with the same smile that we are familiar with since Dhoom. And the moment you see him smiling you will know that you are not going to do that for next 3 hours. Arshad Warsi is the only guy among the 3 lead male actors who was trying to put effort in these dead jokes. Anil Kapoor and Saurabh Shukla have done these roles so many times that you cannot complain about them.

Inamul Haq got a meaty role after a long time but couldn’t perform due to a poorly written character. Kriti Kharbanda impresss you with her comic timing but it is painful to see her trying to put effort when even the director is not doing that. No words a about Illeana Dcruz, Urvashi Rautela and Pulkit Samrat. Even the CGI lions had better expressions and screen presence than these three.

The music is just like the storyline, you have 2 remade songs and both of them are unnecessary. One of the song “Walla Walla” takes you to Arab and the other “Thumka” to Uttar Pradesh. All said and done, this movie is not a regular bollywoodcomedy, it has patriotism, item numbers, horror and action but still please avoid it.

Please if you love your family, friends and humanity then do tell these people not to watch this movie in theatre, online portal or television. Because the trailer itself says ‘Don’t use your brain, because these people don’t have that. Filmi Files is the best place to look for movie reviews online.