Pagalpanti Review: The John Abraham Starrer Leave No Stones Unturned To Kill Your Brain Cells And Bore You To Death
Once upon a time, there was a director named Anees Bazmee who made nonsensical but massively entertaining comedies like Welcome . Sure, the plot did not make sense but that was the fun of it. Then after a series of insipid versions of his own hit formula, he decided to make a film that has the potential to make you think of brutal ways to take your own life instead of watching even a second of it. Of course, we are talking about Pagalpanti. If you think the movie title trolls itself, then you are wrong because there are no words in any language that can describe how abysmal this film is.
But since my cursed existence went through the torture anyway, let me try to save you the pain as a fellow human being. Pagalpanti is a story about three losers, Rajkishore ( John Abraham ), Jaggi ( Arshad Warsi ) and Chandu (Pulkit Samrat). Rajkishore is a panauti or a really unlucky (like Akshay Kumar in Housefull ) person who spreads bad luck where he goes. In the first scene itself, the fireworks shop that these three open ( Golmaal Returns) go up in smokes. So they start yet another business that lands them up with two ‘funny’ dons Rajaji ( Saurabh Shukla ) and Wi-Fi Bhai ( Anil Kapoor ) (Welcome) and after they smash their 7 crore worth car, they are hired as servants to pay up the debt and their job is to basically taste the food to check if it is poisoned by their enemy or to play the body double in case of an attack. Also, there is Sanjana (Ileana D’Cruz) who is duped by her boyfriend Rajkishore and her Mama ( Brijendra Kala ) who are now hunting him down. There is also the don’s dimwitted daughter Janhvi (Kriti Kharbanda) who is in love with Chandu. And, because they were not done with torturing us, there is also Neeraj Modi (Inaam Ul Haq) ,who has ran away from India with lots and lots of money. Ya, ya, we get the Nirav Modi joke and there is also Urvashi Rautela pretending to be a ‘bhootni’.
As ridiculous as all of that sounds, it is not really the plot that is the culprit. When it comes to mindless comedies, passable and even good film have been made out of worse plots. But Pagalpanti is neither funny not entertaining. In fact, despite an overdose of things happening on screen, the film is a total drag and extensively boring.
If that is not enough to kill you brain cells mercilessly, then the childlike editing, ill-timed songs, and a supremely irritating Pulkit Samrat would surely complete the job. To be perfectly honest, the cast has some amazing actors Anil Kapoor, Saurabh Shukla, Arshad Warsi, Mukesh Tiwari and Brijendra Kala and a pretty decent Inaam Ul Haq. Among actresses, Kriti Kharbanda is passable as the dimwitted daughter of the don and Ileana D’Cruz and Urvashi Rautela neither add anything nor make it any worse, if that is even humanely possible. But Pulkit Samrat who is frankly quite a delight in films like Fukrey does the impossible job of standing out for being really bad in a film that is the very definition of horrendous.
The editing of the film is also almost laughable. At places it looks like a raw cut that has not even been on the desk of an editor. We are not even talking about the never ending sequences that just test your patience or the punishingly long running time but even the transitions are choppy and weird and the CGI lions not just fake but unintentionally funny. Also, don’t even get us started on the quality of the music or their placement in the film.
All of that could have been salvaged a little if the film even attempted comedy which was not really difficult given the mélange of actors in the film like Saurabh Shukla, Arshad Warsi or Brijendra Kala. But here things are still stuck on people sticking to each other with glue or John Abraham making weird faces. There is also a desh bhakti angle in the middle, which again, has the special distinction of being a remarkably bad plot in this train wreck of a film. Plus, it helps that thanks to bad editing the change of tone is so sudden and random that this might just be the scene where you decide to finally walk out of the theater.
The film, surely has major Welcome vibes but personally I would not taint that film by even comparing it to this one.
As an adult, there are many issues we face every day. Jobs that do not pay, relationships that don’t go anywhere, parents who can get overbearing or relatives who just can't see you at peace. Whatever your biggest personal tragedy is, reliving it a thousand times over is any day better than watching the sheer torture that is Pagalpanti. If you think I am exaggerating, just go ahead and watch it, I dare you.