If you know what the title means, you are probably from Delhi and its environs. And that’s perhaps the audience for this film. It’s a niche film for those with a particular taste.
Director Mrighdeep Singh Lamba’s (Teen Thay Bhai) film starts with promise but he is unable to make much of a messy story and screenplay. Two duffers who keep failing in school dream of college life – mainly pataoing girls; one college junior wants to get out of correspondence and into a brick and mortar institution; a fourth – a tortured musician type – is no longer in college but hangs around there because that’s where his muse is. The four are bound by the need to get some quick cash to get them closer to their needs, united by the jugadoo college watchman Pandit (Pankaj Tripathi).
Hunny (Pulkit Samrat) and Choocha (Varun Sharma) want to buy leaked exam papers, Lali (Manjot Singh) wants to pay capitation and get into the college through a quota and Zafar (Ali Fazal) needs money to get his father some urgent and private medical treatment. To land these lakhs of rupees they must play the lottery. Why the lottery – because Choocha has strange dreams – mainly about Honey, who then twists them to come up with a digit which usually is a winner.
This brings them to the doorstep of Bholi Punjaban (Richa Chadda), a gangster with Africans as her henchmen, who gives them the seed capital for a big bet. The gamble backfires and now the foursome is stuck with a huge debt and a threat to their lives. How do they get out of it? This is when the film totally loses the plot. Ridiculous plot points, a message about drugs, a lost love, teenage crush etc find their way in. And it’s barely held together by the performances.
Manjot Singh is the most likable as the sincere kid in fear of his aggressive father. Ali Fazal has the same dazed and dreamy look throughout and his character never rises out of the coma. Varun Sharma is irritating after a point as the obviously plump, dumb, sexually starved, comic element. Pulkit Samrat is the best of the bunch but spends a little too much time posturing hero-like. Richa Chadda bites into the limited material with enthusiasm. Tripathi as Pandit takes the material up notches.
Overcooked and under nourishing, the few comic scenes and lines cannot make up for Fukrey’s screenplay flaws and the message, which seems to be: say no to drugs but its ok to buy exam papers and seats to get into college. WTFukrey!
Rating: **
