Vijay 69 is a curate’s egg of a film

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There are people who get serious over funny jokes, and those who find sad things laughable. These are essentially confused souls.

And Vijay 69 as a film belongs to this league. It wants to take itself seriously, with the lofty aim of wanting empathy for its protagonist, Vijay Mathew (Anupam Kher, playing a 60 year-old at 69), who has once won a bronze medal in swimming at the National level. He has then opted to be a swimming coach rather than moving up in this field, as his wife Anna (Ekavali Khanna) has been diagnosed with cancer and is dying, and he wants to spend time with her.

The film opens with a humorous sequence where his family and friends assemble at his funeral meet in a church, assuming that he has committed suicide as he was spotted on a bridge and someone was seen jumping into the water. His best friend, Dr. Fali (Chunky Pandey) has cobbled up a eulogy for him and has even “ordered a coffin online at a discount” when Vijay enters the church, very much alive.

Remonstrating all his friends and family members, he later introspects and decides that he has achieved nothing in life apart from the bronze, and his wife had asked for a promise that he will be an achiever. He soon decides on what he wants to do: participate in a Triathlon, a contest comprising 1.5 km. of swimming, 40 km. of bicycling and 10 km of running, and become the oldest Indian to do so. As it happens, the youngest contestant, Aditya (Mihir Ahuja) is also competing from his residential colony.

When Vijay’s application is dismissed on obvious “grounds” of age and fitness, he brings in Ranjit (Paritosh Sand), his friend and past gold medal winner (when he had won the bronze) to make sure that the Triathlon organizers accept his application. Then come the medical examination and the difficult part—the training for the running and walking.

The director decides to keep things humorous rather than serious, and that becomes a mixed bag as some of the serious things are dismissively treated, like the corrupt mediaperson (Saanand Verma) and what happens to him later is not revealed. The template of underdog stories, which the director had told me would not be followed, is pursued with a vengeance, and the villainy of the young contestant’s father and grandfather not explained though it was so pointless.

The conversion of Vijay’s daughter, Deeksha (Sulagna Panigrahi) to his side is not convincing and too fast, and the contrived way in which Vijay finally gets to participate turns Vijay 69 into a drama of convenience. Alongside, some genuine aspects are covered, not always with the necessary right spirit, like dicey sponsors, influences in sports lobbies, but they are countered by the sheer absurdity of Vijay getting a hefty cheque of three million for the good cause he had thought of when he was practicing for the marathon event. How did that happen when Vijay did not even know he was going to be in the “race”, so to speak?

Besides, Dr. Fali’s specialty is not revealed. Is he seriously an oncologist, as one of his patients (Kunal Vijayakar) is dying of cancer too? And which doctor has such long and unruly hair and still runs a nursing home?? The angle of how Vijay becomes friends with Aditya and the entire episodes of his two successive trainers (one being Vrajesh Hirjee) do not really come across as realistic. Neither do the money angles of huge sums needed for training and equipment.

While the training portions do have some elements of fresh humor and quirkiness, the writer-director’s and banner’s pandering to the OTT platform by showing Vijay as an expert at expletives again brings down the film’s level. Perhaps as a sop to family audiences, this trait on Vijay’s part is criticized on-screen by his wife and daughter but looked at humorously by his cronies!

And so the uneven writing and direction (complete with simplistic issues and solutions) undermines what could have been a sensitive and gripping drama. Anupam Kher tries his best to lift the sagging story and bring it to life, and maybe some of the older generations might even take to it for its basic credo. The actor brings to life Vijay’s anguished and traumatized psyche well and his best sequences are the serious ones. Mihir Ahuja is strictly okay as Aditya, but as his girlfriend, Malti, Ketika Sharma is very good.

Dharmendra Gohil as Aditya’s caricature-like dad is not convincing at all, and Chunky Pandey is clearly playing to the gallery. Guddi Maruti as Parminder Bakshi, Ekavali Khanna as Anna, Sulagna Panigrahi as Deeksha and Adrija Sinha as Ruhi, the digital content creator. are all good. The rest are adequate.

Technically, the film is up to the mark. But on the whole, it fails to leave one—mark, that is. And one trivia here would not be out of place: YRF should steer clear in future of Vijay as a part of a film title. Their 1988 film of that name was a fiasco, after which Yash Chopra told me that he doggedly decided to follow his own convictions and so begin his success streak anew with Chandni. Coincidentally, Anupam Kher’s first association with the banner was also Vijay, and his first successful (of many) one was Chandni.

Rating: **1/2

Netflix presents YRf Entertainment’s Vijay 69 Produced by: Maneesh Sharma  Directed by: Akshay Roy Written by: Akshay Roy & Abbas Tyrewala  Music: Gaurav Chatterjee  Starring: Anupam Kher, Chunky Pandey,. Mihir Ahuja, Ekavali Khanna, Sulagna Panigrahi, Ketika Sharma, Guddi Maruti, Kunal Vijayakar, Adrija Sinha, Vrajesh Hirjee, Saanand Verma, Ravish Desai, Ayan Hasan Ali Khan, Paritosh Sand, Jiten Mukhi & others