Fukrey

Dilip Singh aka Choocha (Varun Sharma) & Vikas Gulati aka Hunny (Pulkit Sharma) are fraands (read friends) for life.  They have grown up together and have failed their senior high school exams for the past 2 years.  They are well on course to flunking again.  Laali (Manjot Singh) is desperate to get a transfer into a college where his childhood love Shalu is studying and is quickly eliminating Laali from her life.

Zafar (Ali Fazal) has been studying at the college which our earlier 3 protagonists have been targeting.  Other than the college, the only thing that gets them together is a dire need for money.  The pair needs it for leaking their papers before the exams.  Laali needs it for a donation to the college.  And Zafar needs it for his father’s treatment.

 

Turns out that Choocha has this capability of dreaming.  Hunny uses these dreams to convert them into buying the right lottery tickets.  Their plan has always succeeded to date.  So when there is a need for money, they use their local contact – Panditji – to introduce them to the local gang-woman – Boli Punjaban (Richa Chaddha).

 

One would have expected Fukrey to be a laugh a minute riot.  But it disappoints you on that front.  While there are several light moments in the movie, it is nowhere close to being as fast as what the trailers indicated.  It is, in fact a vastly stretched out movie that could have done with 30 more minutes of editing – at least.

 

A potentially strong story line has once again been botched up by some pedestrian direction (Mrigdeep Singh Lamba) and below par editing (Anand Subaya) – the sad story of most movies from Bollywood continues.  I wonder if it is genuinely due to lack of funds. The frequency of the same error prompts me to move towards – sheer lack of interest in perfection.

 

Fukrey survives due to the acting.  I’m going to stick my neck out to say that Vipul Sharma’s character demanded the over the top acting.  Richa Chaddha is again superb and probably the life of the movie.  Manjot Singh and Pulkit Sharma, both have potential and should get some good breaks.  But Ali Fazal seriously needs to find a new career option lest he turns out to be as much of a loser as his character.

 

In all, Fukrey could be watched once but don’t expect too much from it.  You may find yourself itching to take a break before the actual interval.  And the promise at the interval that, “Picture toh ab shuru hone wali hai” (The movie is about to begin) falls flat.  I expected better – especially when Excel Entertainment was involved.  Disappointingly a 5 on 10.

 

Watch the trailer on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epUpq4hAbj4