From sex to spooks: Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video stews them all!

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In the holy town of Rishikesh, we have a mehndi artiste Vicky (Rajkummar Rao) in childhood love with Vidya, who grows up to be a doctor, who is shown sans clinic, patients or work. She could have been a wedding planner instead, for all the absent references to her profession. The town has annual mass weddings held by a noble social worker (Mukesh Tiwari) and Vicky and Vidya are married off.

Anyways, the couple then decides on the ‘unholy’ act of not going for a Vaishno Mata pilgrimage like everyone in their circle and dash off instead for a romance-filled honeymoon trip to Goa where they even shoot their own romantic video. And back home, on the night they decide to watch the CD (and cannot), there is a robbery in their house and the VCD player too is stolen—with their CD in it!

The rest of the film follows their frantic search for the CD. In come a professional (!) robber (Mast Ali), his dealers Bulbul (Ashwini Kalsekar) and her goons, Suniel and Shetty (Mubeen Saudagar and  Jaswant Singh Rathore) and an accomplice who wears a necklace of skeleton keys. There is also the social worker’s slimy cohort, Pardesi (Saharsh Kumar Shukla) who loves Vicky’s sister Chanda (Mallika Sherawat).

Also in the picture is the cop Laadle (Vijay Raaz) who falls for Chanda, his two assistants and of course, Vidya’s parents (Rakesh Bedi and a paan-addicted Archana Puran Singh), Vicky’s grandfather (Tiku Talsania) and Vicky’s maid, also named Chanda (Archana Patel), who is so moody that the word ‘mercurial’ would sound tepid. Of course, granddad’s ancestral sword has also been robbed, which is the main reason why the old man is livid.

Into this mess (with Laadle’s overtures to Chanda and the maid’s overtures to Laadle!), come in all the other characters. In the end, we get a graveyard shift with a co-operative ghost, and a shocking revelation about the mass weddings. Thirty minutes short of the very protracted end, this breezy, often madcap tale with some terrific one-liners turns into a soppy social drama and then jerks back to a mad end where a slide claims that Vicky and Vidya will be back! Really!

As said above, the one-liners make the first 120 minutes of the 2.33 hour narration fun, and while I don’t really mind the jerky end-twist, the emotions in the tale are sopped…I mean squeezed!…to the last drop—and beyond! The graveyard scene could have also been straight out of Dinesh Vijan’s spy universe, except that it seems forced into the tale to “entertain” as horror comedies are currently ‘in’ (Munjya, Kakuda, Stree 2).

On the other hand, the romantic sequence of Vidya’s parents, with Vicky and Vidya underneath their bed, is filmed in a hilarious rather than objectionable or tasteless way, an indication that co-writer-director Raaj Shandilyaa must hone his talents more in the pure humor segment (the old TV epic Comedy Circus, Dreamgirl) rather than the hotchpotch storytelling (Janhit Mein Jaari as writer and The Great Weddings of Munnes). He is in absolute command in the earthy, small-town fun department when the script is carrying on in a purely mirth-laden tenor.

Shandilyaa uses old songs galore, but the original music is lackadaisical, except for Sachin-Jigar’s Mere mehboob, which carries a wannabe-Aaj kiraat hangover and must have been created after the release of the Stree 2 hit! More, it is a sly rework of Anu Malik’s Samajhkar chand jisko (Baazigar)!

Triptii Dimri is fluidly in form as Vidya, but Rajkummar Rao, though he loosens up a shade, is only routine. Tiku Talsania and Rakesh Bedi, normally irritating hams, are kept in check and do well, and Archana Puran Singh, cast as a small-town hausfrau is a scream. The other Archana—Patel—is delightful as the maid, and Vijay Raaz handles his crazy character with great elan. Ashwini Kalsekar as Bulbul is a hoot, and so are Mast Ali as the crook, the keychain thief (unknown actor) and the two sidekicks of Laadle (again names not known). The actors playing Sunil and Shetty are alright. A plus point of this film is the way every character has roles that are clearly etched.

Wish the film’s narrative had an equally clearly-etched agenda—to maintain the casually funny flow all the way, instead of bringing in too many things into what ultimately becomes a mocktail rather than a potent cocktail of comedy that it could have easily been.

Rating: **1/2

T-Series Films’, Wakaoo Films’, Balaji Motion Pictures’ & Kathavachak Films’ Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video  Produced by: Bhushan Kumar, Krishan Kumar, Ashwin Varde, Shobha Kapoor, Ekta Kapoor, Vipul D. Shah, Rajesh Bahl, Raaj Shaandilyaa & Vimal Lahoti  Directed by: Raaj Shandilyaa Written by: Raaj Shandilyaa, Yusuf Khan, Ishrat Khan & Rajan Agarwal  Music: Anand-Milind, Sandesh Shandilya & Sachin-Jigar  Starring: Rajkummar Rao, Triptii Dimri, Mallika Sherawat, Tiku Talsania, Rakesh Bedi, Archana Puran Singh, Archana Patel, Manjot Singh, Vijay Raaz, Mukesh Tiwari, Mast Ali, Saharsh Kumar Shukla, Mubeen Saudagar,  Jaswant Singh Rathore Sp. App.: Shehnaaz Gill, Daler Mehndi & others