Never Ending Movie Carnival
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Wild Wild Punjab movie review: A helluva wacky, crazy adventure!
What: ‘Wild Wild Punjab’ - chaos, comedy and camaraderie ensue in this wild ride of four boys and wisdom is on a long vacation.
Ever wondered if a suicide note can begin with a “Sat Shri Akal!” ? Well, Rajesh Khanna can do it! No, I am not talking about the late veteran actor, but the jilted lover in the Simarpreet Singh’s directed Wild Wild Punjab who drafts this letter to his girlfriend because she has just ditched and cheated on him
Wild Wild Punjab movie synopsis
Varun Sharma plays Khanna – the funniest among the unintentionally funny and funky quartet, the others being Arora (Sunny Singh), Jainu (Jassie Gill) and Honey (Manjot Singh), who is dissuaded by his friends to drop the suicide idea and rather avenge the break-up by crashing his ex’s wedding and achieve closure. Nothing much, he must go and just say to her, “I am over you!”. More to that, the boys even keep debauching her name from Vaishu (short form of Vaishali) to Vaisya which serves as a running joke in the film (first nod to misogyny!).
What ensues is an impromptu ride from Patiala to Pathankot which would apparently take just 3 hours in his beloved sturdy cruiser, “Paro” as claimed by Honey. But little do these mischievous and lose-control guys know that this 3-hour ride is going to have misadventures written all over it – wild, wicked and wacky. Singh's work has a relentless and boisterous vibe, just like a well-timed Punjabi idiosyncrasy and cruises against the multi-colored backdrop of Punjab.
‘Wild Wild Punjab’ is written and co-produced by Luv Ranjan – the man known for this inventive comedy, bromance and signature stamp of misogyny. This film is ‘Pyar ka Panchnama’ on a wild dope. Like the Indianized and mediocre version of Hollywood’s Hangover. There is bromance but a lot of bickering too, between the four. These guys pick up fights at a fuel station, one of them even pisses flames, and surreptitiously trespasses into a wedding while in search of booze. They are so sloshed that one of them even gets married to a naïve girl named Radha (Patralekha) when her marriage succumbs to last-minute dowry woes. Radha accompanies the boys whom she hardly knows (2nd nod to misogyny!). During their drive, they conveniently pick another girl from a college to pose as Khanna's girlfriend so that Vaishu will suffer pangs of jealousy(3rd nod to misogyny!).
With wits and wisdom on vacation and the vehicle never running out of fuel except once, Ranjan and his team of writers (accredited for screenplay and dialogues), Harman Wadala and Sharman Jain, do run out of fresh ideas and slam us with run-of-the-mill humour and a meandering narrative that doesn’t really lead anywhere. Ishita Raj Sharma’s character (Meera) and the events that follow with the unhinged and the colourful drug dealer (played by Anjum Batra) and his henchmen was needless and contrived. And when there are goons and gaalis, there must be a policeman. Rajesh Sharma is good at playing the SHO-in-charge of a small town called Roopnagar. But little can a fine actor like him do when the script is so pedestrian and the ensemble characters so one-note.
But Wild Wild Punjab is consistently watchable for the crazy camaraderie among the steadfast Punjabi mundas. Sunny Singh is distinctive in playing Arora, the guy with a wild sex drive and suitably called “Kamdev ke najayaz Aulad”, Jasie playing the timid Jainu with a calm demeanour that adds balance in the wildness and the Fukrey boys, Varun and Manjot who seem to have come straight from the set of that entertaining film with their signature antics. It is hard to take the Choocha out of Sharma, even though he survives a gunshot in his butt. At one point, Jasie blurts out to Honey, “Aap toh hamare Whatsapp group mein bhi nahin ho Paaji!”, and the subsequent ‘heartache’ reaction in Manjot’s eyes is so instinctive and natural. The actor has an unmatchable and winning flair for comedy in such unusual scenarios.
Wild Wild Punjab - final words
I go with 3 stars out of 5 for Wild Wild Punjab. At 1 hour and 50 minutes of run time and available directly on OTT, this one is a safe bet for a weekend watch and fun with exuberant bhangras, bullets and bandooks.
‘Wild Wild Punjab’ is produced by T-Series, Luv Ranjan and Ankur Garg, and is streaming on Netflix from 12th July 2024.
Ahwaan Padhee, is an IT Techie/Business Consultant by profession and a film critic/cinephile by passion, is also associated with Radio Playback as well, loves writing and conducting movie quizzes. More By Ahwaan Padhee