Action Replayy

Dear Robert Zemeckis – I hope and pray to God that you never get around to watching this broad day light carnage. At this rate they will get to Forrest Gump in a bit. So it may well be worth it to put some stay orders on Vipul Amrutlal Shah lest he considers making Action Replayy 2 and then 3 and then eventually gets to being “inspired” by your best movie to date. Please consider this as a humble request to send your people to set up a representative office here in India – or at least ask Universal Pictures to do the same. It is a humble request / plea.


Bunty (Aditya Roy Kapur) and Tanya (Sudeepa Singh) are in a relationship for quite a while now. Funnily, Tanya is the person who has been asking Bunty to marry him for quite some time now. If I had someone like Tanya I would grab her with every single bone in my body – I mean seriously the chick is HOT guys!!!! She was to date known for only the small screen. 2 serials under her belt – Risshton Ki Dor & Kabhie To Nazar Milao – and thanks to Vipul Amrutlal Shah she is no longer seen only on a 29”screen . Nevertheless, for someone to reject several marriage proposals from Tanya would mean some kind of terminal illness or child abuse which has left a permanent scar on his brain and prevents him from understanding the difference between True Love and Hotness (trust me – Hotness prevails ). It would seem that Bunty has been a victim of the latter – CHILD ABUSE – those long drawn nights where his parents – Kishen (AK) and Mala (ARB) – who were never meant to be together spent hours on end fighting over the most trivial issues. These instances have gotten our poor little Bunty to a situation where he has given up on the institution of marriage completely.

But Tanya will have nothing of it. She has had it finally and wants Bunty to make his decision right away – Atta girl I say, I am first in line after Bunty. But my excitement is to be short lived as Tanya drags Bunty to meet her Grandfather (who she refers to as Grandpa in the same manner as a 6 year old would – and the bubble of Tanya has finally burst – Bunty you can have her). Now Grandpa (Randhir Kapoor) has an equally corny name – Gonsalves – Anthony Gonsalves (By now u are reaching for your own throat). He gives Bunty 24 hours to decide whether he wants to marry Tanya or not. But Bunty is more fascinated with the old scientist’s (Oops I forgot to mention that Anthony Gonsalves was a scientist) contraption or Time Machine as he refers to it. Bunty dodges the marriage question by claiming that it is his parents 35th Anniversary the next day and he is too busy to think about marriage. As luck would have it, Kishen and Mala cannot help but fight once again and things come to breaking point – DIVORCE!!!! I mean it took them 35 years to get there!!!! Some patience. Bunty swears that he will not let the D word enter the family and runs off to meet to scientist, takes his time machine and sets off to 1975 to change what he calls the one mistake in his life that he would change if he could – his parent’s marriage.

My sentiments of Action Replayy are best captured by one of my co-movie watchers who probably ruined his Diwali evening too. At the interval there was a loud, “THANK GOD”!!! that erupted from a dark recess in the movie hall. Just a word of advise though. If you have survived till the interval – believe me the toughest part is over. The 2nd half is much better but don’t get your hopes too high. Much better than the first half is what I meant. The 4 good things for me in Action Replayy were the introduction of Sudeepa Singh (purely from the perspective of hotness), the voice in the interval which said “Thank God”, The music which is really foot tapping and worth listening to and lastly the way Kishen says “Aawaaz Neeche”!!!! once he changes his avatar to a super confident one. The rest of the movie is vastly forgettable.

Direction is pretty much absent most of the time. Consistency has nothing to be written home about. Posters of Bobby (released 1973) still dot the lamp posts outside Capitol cinema in 1975. AK has lost his comic timing more than 2 years back. Ash has anyways been only furniture. The only time she has tried to act was when SLB directed her. The costume designing is a total khichdi between everything from the 60s to the first decade of the 21st century. The sets look good till you figure out quite clearly that a lot of it is Computer Graphics work very badly executed. The support cast with the exception of Kirron Kher and Om Puri is extremely insipid. This music as mentioned earlier is a saving grace but even that may have been “inspired” considering it comes from the house of Pritam. I know Nakhre is inspired from a 60s number. But the rest will eventually come to light (hopefully not). 2 on 10 is the verdict from my end. Not the worst movie of the year as predicted from my side earlier.