Movie Review - Fukrey Returns – by Suhel Johar

Fukrey Returns Is Not Half As Good As The Original

 

Fukrey’s USP was its rawness and simplicity. Four years after the original hilarious Fukrey comes its sequel, Fukrey Returns. The plot of the prequel was simple to understand and didn’t get too complex in any of the acts. The characterizations were unique and so were the plots. Fukrey deserved a sequel for its sheer rawness and original humour. However, Fukrey Returns is not a deserving sequel. Well it tries to be one though.

The film starts with a song which recaps the prequel in five minutes to have the people know the context and where the story ended. The sequel starts after a year of that. The guys lives are more or less the same, except that Hunny (Pulkit Samrat) has an SUV now and even manages to inform his girl friend Priya’s (Priya Anand) father that he wants to marry his daughter. Choocha (Varun Sharma) still dreams, has premonitions and continues to be smitten by Bholi Punjaban (Richa Chadha). Lali (Manjot Singh) is still mocked by his Dad for his uselessness and Zafar (Ali Fazal) is planning a Goa trip with his teacher girl friend Neetu (Vishakha Singh). However, they are again faced up with a series of problems, as Bholi Punjaban, the fearsome don, is back from jail. Bholi has paid a big price to a corrupt politician and CM aspirant Babulal Bhatia (Rajiv Gupta) to get herself released from jail, which has rendered her broke. She wants a lot of cash and she orders the fukras to hatch a new plan to earn money. Will the Fukras succeed in their mission or will Bholi rip their skins off their bodies?

Fukrey Returns is all, and then some more, about Choocha. Well, understandably so. After all, he became quite a mass favourite after the first film. But this time around, Choocha isn't half as much endearing as he was in the first outing. In fact he gets on your nerves after a point. Same goes for the other fukras, Hunny, Lali and Zafar. This time, they are too-smart-for-their-own-good.

The story itself is loose, with crass and at times disgusting scenes thrown in for nothing. After a sluggish start as it gets going the first half does tickle the funny bone. The film taps on some factors that really helped the original. But as the film progresses Fukrey Returns gets too much into twists which makes it a complex plot. It overdoes the thrills and loses the grip. A bit of slapstick comedy is also added. The film never really gets off to a full charge and it isn’t as much of a laugh riot as expected. Even though it makes most of its madcap shenanigans work in its favour they are as stupid as it can get and unjustifiable in its contrivances and totally ludicrous in its play-up

Director Mrigdeep Singh Lamba was far more impressive in the original then with the sequel. He just carries forward the hangover from the original. His writing along with Vipul Vig manages to be sly and imaginative even though the set-up is hopelessly contrived and far-fetched to boot. Andre Menezes’ cinematography is competent. Dev Rao Jadhav’s editing is okay. Music by Ram Sampath is listless with only the reprised version of Oh meri mehboobs sounding peppy. Background score by Sameer Uddin is effective.

Performancewise, Varun Sharma gets the meatiest part in the film which he performs in his inimitable style. Richa Chadha exhibits much more energy and verve than she did in the original while Pulkit Samrat, Manjot Singh, Pankaj Tripathi, Rajiv Gupta, the girls and the Nigereans make their presence felt. Ali Fazal has less screen time which could be because of his being busy with his international film projects and he disappoints in this one.

On the whole, Fukrey Returns is not half as good as the original. So, if you are going by how Fukrey was, its sequel will only leave you disappointed.