Movie Review: Fukrey

Inconsistent yet funny, a tad stretched yet engaging: that is Fukrey, a comedy about a bunch of losers who after a series of hiccups find their around their ill luck.

In terms of its narrative structure, Fukrey, directed by Mrighdeep Singh Lamba, is a male bonding dramedy that belongs to the same genre as Delhi Belly and 3 Idiots. What sets it apart just a little from other films of its ilk is the breezy tone that it adopts and sustains all the way through to the end.

That is not to say that it is an outstanding laugh riot. Owing to its length – it runs for two hours and a quarter, it tends to flag a tad at times. If the film does not go completely off track, it is because some of the writing is first-rate, the acting is spontaneous and energetic and the characters are people that are interesting.

Two Delhi buddies, both back-benchers who have been stuck in school longer than their mates, are desperate to get to college. The girls on the campus are the duo’s only incentive.

Another guy in another part of the city, the son of an eatery owner, is just as keen to enter the portals of the aforementioned college. His girlfriend, who goes to the same institution, has drifted away from the boy and the latter wants to woo her back.

Mayhem is triggered when the three boys and a slightly older guy – a musician who strums his guitar the whole day in the hope to hitting the big time one day – get entangled with a female Mafioso, who they drag into a plan they hatch to earn the money they need to pay their way into college.

It is the adventurism of youth that drives the protagonists of Fukrey, who, despite knowing full well that life isn’t a bed of roses for them, are willing to go the whole hog in pursuit of their dreams.

Yes, dreams play a key role in Fukrey and the message that the film conveys is that academic and material success isn’t the be all and end all of life. But the boys – and the girls in their lives – learn that simple home truth the hard way.

Fukrey manages to be a fun film without having to resort to buffoonery of any sort. The performances by the principal cast is marvellous, with newcomer Varun Sharma as the boy whose dreams spark both hope and trouble and the Manjot Singh as the deadpan youngster who plays fair and square even when the chips are down, emerging as the stars of the show.

But no less impressive are Pulkit Samrat, Richa Chadda (playing the criminal Bholi Punjaban) and Vishakha Singh in the role of an accountancy teacher who gets her numbers right against all odds.

Fukrey is a rare Bollywood comedy that won’t reduce you to tears. Go for it.