For the rest of
the week, I will be catching up with reviews that are horribly delayed thanks
to a really tough 3 weeks. But now that I
have the time, we will have a minor flurry of them starting with a decent movie
called Mickey Virus that I had the opportunity to catch up with on my way back
from Pilani in the capital a couple of weeks back.
I say decent because, Bollywood has attempted to dabble with a genre that is – how do we say this – not as much in their comfort zone. Clearly at the end of Mickey Virus, we are clear about our apparent fascination with slick IT Thrillers from the west but also our incapability to do the genre as much justice. Why? Because we do not consider production value to be important.
So, basements in
Nehru Place have fancy gadgets that appear to have come out of the sets of
Minority Report. Fancy tech terms are thrown
around that have no apparent meaning to a tech guy. We have code cracking games that end with
random viruses being uploaded in a meek attempt to create some comedy. Of
course there is a parkour chase to begin with (as has become the trend) because
most IT guys parkour before they speak.
And as the
comedy and parkour get a bit out of place, the more serious plot that involves Kung
Fu Chameli – which is by far THE most interesting character in the movie – so what
if it is animated. Mickey Virus Arora (Manish
Paul) is the tech geek behind Chameli – probably a product of his late night
fantasies.
Virus is roped
in by ACP Siddharth Chauhan (Manish Choudhary) and after trying to dodge him
for a bit he finally succumbs to some convincing – Delhi Police Ishtyle (read
style). But as he begins his work after
throwing around some random upgrade requirements, guess who he bumps into? Real
life Kung Fu Chameli dressed in the same neon green saree and low cut blouse in
a Delhi Vegetable market.
How we would all
love to see something like that everyday no? Our man doesn’t smell a fish. It is apparently a normal sight in a Delhi
market. He then proceeds to court Ms.
Kamayani (really?) George (Elli Avram) who works for a Excalibur Securites,
wears summer dresses to office, runs around Delhi in a sports bra and reads
Sakhi (a cheapie Hindi Magazine). Things
pick up pace when Kammo is found dead like a few other IT geeks – Andrew Weber
and Jimmy Tarkoff (oh and that happens first up in the movie).
I could keep
poking holes till the cows come home into this one but I still didn’t find it
to be a strain on myself. It is well cut
and the fact that Manish Paul can act reasonably well makes it easy to go
through Mickey Virus. The music isn’t too
great but again it isn’t supposed to be an integral part of the movie or impact
it in any manner. The effort is sincere
as well. The support cast in
encouraging.
The
disappointment only stems from the lack of attention to detail that has been a
constant complaint from my side with respect to Bollywood. Mickey Virus could
have been a really good movie but it lands up being a decent watch. Do see it
when it comes on TV or Video on Demand or the likes. 5 on 10.
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