Where The Loonies Roam:
Rating: One star:
Over the last few weeks, while promoting Pagalpanti, the director (Anees Bazmee) and stars have been going on and on about how much fun they had while shooting the film. But what about the audiences, aren’t they supposed to get some entertainment too? Or was it produced just so that the cast and crew could have a holiday in London while pretending to make a movie.
Raj Kishore (John Abraham) is supposed to be a bad luck carrier– whatever he touches turns to ashes, beginning with the fireworks shop he invests in, with his friends Chunky (Arshad Warsi) and Chandu (Pulkit Samrat). When they attempt to deliver a car to gangsters Raja (Saurabh Shukla) and Wifi (Anil Kapoor), they wreck it, and are forced to take up employment with them as food tasters and decoys, to protect them from attacks by rival gangsters (called Tully and Bully!).
Between insipid gags, they all end up owing money to Niraj Modi (Inaamulhaq), who has come to London with crores looted from Indian banks. While escaping Modi’s men—fighting them with glue guns (really!) at one point– the three friends and assorted hangers-on arrive at a haunted mansion, and right into Vikram Bhatt territory, where a “bhootni” dances in skimpy costumes instead of scaring them. It might be added here, that there are three dumb-looking love interests played by Ileana D’Cruz, Kriti Kharbanda and Urvashi Rautela, whose only job is to participate in dance numbers with dozens of extras, dressed in loud costumes probably rummaged from the trunks of old Padmalaya movies (the ones in which Jeetendra and leading ladies danced in gaudy costumes against bizarre backdrops).
Nothing happens in the film for a reason, like, don’t ask why lions saunter in for a pre-climax scene, when the audience is drooping with boredom-induced fatigue. The time (165 interminable minutes) and money spent on Pagapanti would not be such a total waste, if the film offered even one measly laugh! All you get is a what-the-hell moment when the three clowns go all patriotic in the end and want to die for their “watan”—like those NRIs who will do anything for their country, except live there.
John Abraham looks like he was waiting for someone to give him a badge and gun so that he could go off to another movie location and kill terrorists. Anil Kapoor should not even have been in this film, never mind how much money they paid him. All one can say to people who go ahead and watch this insanity after being warned is, stay sane!
