Twenty minutes into Happy Patel: Khatarnak Jasoos, I was reminded of a question someone asked me around the Golden Globes recently: “How did One Battle After Another win in the Musical/Comedy category? There were no songs and there wasn’t any comedy.” While I chuckled then, watching Vir Das and Kavi Shastri’s film made me re-realize his perception of comedy.
Happy Patel is set in a satirical world with a nice lineup of eccentric characters and even weirder events. Somehow, the filmmakers are hell-bent on making us laugh in a Bollywood slapstick comedy sort of manner. Which is why, it was awkward when Happy Patel could not make me laugh. Not even once. It was like your younger sibling trying to tickle you in childhood, only to fail miserably. I may have smiled a couple of times here and there, notably during the climax. That was it.
The story of Happy Patel follows Happy (Vir Das), the son of two men in London who worked as spies in Goa decades ago. After a chaotic opening sequence lands him in their care, Happy grows into a confused British lad who is excellent at making sandwiches but abysmal at his efforts to become a spy.
A chance opportunity lands Happy Patel a visit to India and a chance to explore his roots. At the opposite end is the quirky and vile Mama (Mona Singh), who – besides eyeing a fairness cream revolution in India – cooks up mean Goan cutlets for good deeds and bad. Happy and Mama share a past that makes the film’s basic plot intriguing, but in Das and Shastri’s peculiar tendency to overstretch their ideas, the narrative fizzles out midway.
Happy Patel‘s attempt at humour relies almost entirely on malapropism. We get “Lakdi ki jaan katori mein thi,” “Naam to tsunami hoga,” and so on. This starts when Happy begins learning Hindi and continues until the final minute. It is mildly interesting for exactly two sequences. After that, the device becomes repetitive and eventually exhausting. There are also attempts at risque jokes that feel cute in their effort, but the writing is so stand-up comedy-coded that the actual film gets lost in the process. Soon, we get a barrage of lines such as, “Tum bhi agent, yeh bhi agent, tum dono ka bachcha pakka MBA karega,” making us wonder where the craft is hidden.
Simply put, there is no cinema in Happy Patel. If there’s an attempt at filmmaking, it’s all over the place and more like a collection of gags that never coalesce into a screenplay. On the bright side, the individual character sketches are fun. Happy, Geet, Rupa, Roxy, Mama and her gang gang of goons are all amusing. Even Tony is a fun element, despite the lack of originality. The slow, elderly waiter is another quirky character who deserved a better film around him.
This way, the cast is clearly having a better time than the audience in Happy Patel. Mona Singh is a riot as Mama. We rarely see female actors allowed to operate in this specific comic mode. Vir Das attempts an Orry mimicry that is decent, though it feels like a “Reebuk” knockoff of the real thing. His accent is inconsistent, yet he remains watchable. Srushti Tawade gives a solid account of herself, whereas Mithila Palkar and Sharib Hashmi do their best in a film that doesn’t care for them.
Though I have no idea what Imran Khan was doing here instead of a legitimate comeback outing, Aamir Khan shines in a brief cameo. In short, I’d blindly buy a ticket to watch the same bunch of people in a better enterprise.
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Happy Patel‘s script is additionally overloaded with pop culture and social media references. From DDLJ to OnlyFans, it has everything, and it is expected given the writers (Vir Das, Amogh Ranadive) have been stand-up comics. The disconnect occurs when the film peeps out of its momentary coolness. For example, the score borrows yesteryear hits such as ‘Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin’, ‘Pappu Can’t Dance Saala’ and ‘Balam Pichkari’, but the gap between the intent of their usage and the actual impact they create is ocean-sized. Those were moments when I randomly imagined how Vasan Bala might have done it.
Logic is not what one seeks in a two-hour-long absurdist comedy, so I didn’t mind the film’s unabashed silliness. I wasn’t hoping to laugh out loud either. Instead, Happy Patel: Khatarnak Jasoos turns out to be a strange film, and not the hilarious or outrageous kind of strange seen in the universes of Luis Buñuel or Quentin Dupieux. It perhaps wanted to be something like that, but in a futile attempt to also belong to the Delhi Belly and Go Goa Gone zone, the film turns into a snoozefest.
Speaking of which, I noticed several people in the theatre catching a good nap. I felt oddly happy for them because there was, anyway, nothing in Happy Patel that elicited applause or an uproarious laugh likely to jolt them awake. After a long, tiring week, if a film can’t entertain, it might as well let you catch up on lost sleep.
VERDICT: ★★ 1/2