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Release
date:
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August 24, 2018
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Director:
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Mudassar Aziz
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Cast:
Language:
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Sonakshi Sinha, Jassie Gill,
Jimmy Sheirgill, Piyush Mishra, Aparshakti Khurana, Jason Tham, Cameos: Diana
Penty and Ali Fazal
Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu and a spot
of Mandarin
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Happy Bhag Jayegi was the
sleeper hit of 2016, a comedy revolving around an Amritsari bride who runs away
from her wedding to marry the man she loves, but lands up in the home of a
stranger – a Pakistani politician – by mistake. Diana Penty was luminous as the
eponymous leading lady of that film, which, despite its insubstantial plot and
flagging second half, managed to be funny all the same. She reprises her role
in a cameo in Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi even
as it diverts its gaze to another Punjabi girl called Harpreet a.k.a. Happy,
this one played by Sonakshi Sinha.
Writer-director Mudassar Aziz
appears to have taken the feedback on his previous venture to heart. Happy Part 2 not only remains largely
amusing if you can excuse a few waning patches here and there, the writing of
its characters and the plot also have more substance than Part 1. Of course it
is a parade of non-stop nonsense, but how does it hurt to get a fit of the
giggles in a film that yet does not insult your intelligence and heads off in
directions that Bollywood rarely bothers with, especially in comedy?
For a start, it is nice to once
again meet a heroine not helplessly hanging around waiting for a man, any man,
to bachao (save) her when she is
trapped in trying circumstances. This Happy is a combustible woman and like
that Happy takes matters into her own hands when the going gets tough.
There’s more where she came from.
How often do we get to see a Hindi film featuring a turbanned Sikh as a major
character without the screenplay being packed with Bhangra and cries of “balle balle”, without the guy in
question being loud and boisterous, and sans sermons about Sikh valour or
traditions of service to others? Representation should not be about
pedestalising minority communities, but about acknowledging their existence in
big and small ways without feeling compelled to create a shindig around an
individual’s religious or ethnic identity.
So yeah, we have Khushwant Singh
Gill (played by the very likeable Jassie Gill) who is recruited to Happy’s team
in a foreign country, without so much as a balle
balle or a lecture about Sikhism. Then there is the Lahori cop Usman Afridi
(Piyush Mishra) and the Amritsari thug-politician Daman Singh Bagga (Jimmy
Sheirgill), carryovers from Happy Bhag Jayegi, still sparring over Urdu
and Pakistan in a still engaging and still inoffensive fashion. Yeah, a
Pakistani character who is not belittled or demonised in this era of crude,
in-your-face nationalism that India is passing through and Bollywood is
pandering to. Imagine that.
The trickiest part of Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi is that it is
set in China, which would have been an excuse to make lazy racist jokes in most
Bollywood films, but not here. Aziz walks a fine line – a clever line – by
allowing his characters to be racist as they would be in real life, while using
their prejudice to throw a spotlight on the “all Chinese look alike” attitude
of the average insular Indian who resorts to the dismissive umbrella labels
“Cheeni” and “chinky” for people of the entire geographical region extending
from our own north-eastern states all the way to Japan. Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi’s humour incorporates consequences that the
primary characters suffer for their insularity and ignorance. This is done
mainly through the medium of the gangster Chang played by Jason Tham.
None of this is spelt out in
black and white, nor is the normalisation of a gay romance in a brief passage
that eschews Dostana-style jokes
completely. In a film where you least expect it, we are thus reminded without
anyone overtly saying so, that homosexuals, cross dressers, Pakistanis, the
Chinese, Punjabis and women – groups that are usually stereotyped in Hindi
cinema – are all just regular people.
Happy
Phirr Bhag Jayegi could still have done with more work on its writing and
direction – the songs (barring the remix of the appropriately chosen classic, Mera naam Chin Chin Chu) are ordinary
and feel superfluous, there are places in the narrative where the energy dips
(which is inexcusable in a comedy), the manner in which a fellow called Fa in
Shanghai is introduced seems to suggest that he will be a significant player
among Happy’s allies but then he inexplicably disappears for most of the film, and
the sidelining of Diana Penty’s Happy feels like such an opportunity lost
considering the spark this underrated, under-utilised actor showed in the first Happy.
Truth be told, I was really
looking forward to more scenes with Sinha and Penty together, because though
Sinha is the bigger star, Penty has the charisma to match. Where she does get
screen space in Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi, Penty gives us evidence of her innate
verve, which adds to the disappointment on this front.
Sinha’s filmography so far has
been dominated by crass big-banner ventures often trivialising sexual
harassment and starring major male stars, in which she played the hero’s lover
who could have been played by any other marginal female star. She has
underlined her ability to be more than just a vapid sidelight and in fact to
carry a story on her shoulders in films such as Lootera, Noor and Ittefaq. Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi gives her the chance to tap her comic
timing and she does so with gusto, leading the charge in an ensemble cast of
gifted actors. Piyush Mishra is as hilarious as he was last time. Sheirgill
gets more opportunities here to mine his flair for comedy and is good too. And
Gill is, without question, hero material.
Happy
Phirr Bhag Jayegi is not without flaws, but they are overshadowed by the absence
of references to farts, poop and animal backsides, homophobia, misogyny and
other ugly biases that have repeatedly reared their heads in the kind of
comedies Sinha herself has been a part of over the years. Pleasant and engaging
is an option in this genre – thank you, Mr Aziz, for knowing that.
Note: This is not a Hindi film.
The dialogues are a mix of Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu and a spot of Mandarin (I
think), with Punjabi dominating the conversations but not so much that a
non-Hindi speaker would be lost.
Rating
(out of five stars): **1/4
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CBFC Rating (India):
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UA
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Running time:
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137 minutes
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This
review has also been published on Firstpost:
Poster
courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Phirr_Bhag_Jayegi
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