Starring: Rajkummar Rao, Triptii Dimri, Vijay Raaz, Mallika Sherawat, Abhishek Banerjee, Nikki Tamboli, Ashish Vidyarthi
Director: Raaj Shaandilyaa
When it comes to acting, both Rao and Dimri share a great repertoire of skills, finesse and nuances. Rao’s ‘Stree’ franchise, or films like ‘Srikanth’ and ‘Newton’ are all examples of his acting prowess. Same can be said about Dimri – releases like ‘Bulbul’ and ‘Qala’, for example, are cases in point.
However, while ‘Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video’ (VVKWVV) does do some justice to their collective talent pool, it lacks in a strong storyline, good screenplay and believable plotlines. At risk of sounding cliché, one may say that the film – which is now streaming on Netflix – had good potential: a newly married couple who record an intimate video of themselves as a honeymoon memory are soon left devasted when the CD of the video goes missing during a home robbery. Predictably, the film is about the two of them trying to recover their stolen CD without letting anyone find out about its contents.
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Instead of sticking to this core plotline, though, the film finds itself veering off into pointless subplots. Of course, when done right, subplots can add some much-needed humour, intrigue and pace to a story. Here, though, the writers seems to have picked a random mix of plots that do not speak to each other and do little to complement the key plot and simply tossed them together in a bag. Even the main plot itself is meandered and stretched more than its scope to the point where finishing the film begins to feel like a chore.
The dialogical humour is only funny on occasion and the pointless running and chasing appears to be the film’s best go at slapstick humour. The character arcs are underdeveloped and appearances from the likes of Sherawat unfortunately add no real value to the overall plot.
It is surprising that director Shaandilyaa, who is also the director of the Ayushmann Khurrana starrer franchise, ‘Dream Girl’, fails to make this one a success on any account.
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The only saving grace would be the one or two emotional moments between Vicky (Rao) and Vidya (Dimri), where the actors are allowed to showcase their acting prowess.
Other than those, it is in essence, a string of messy direction, sloppy writing and lousy plotlines.