Firangi

Cast: Kapil Sharma, Ishita Dutta, Monica Gill, Inaam-ul-haq

Rated: 4/10

Kapil Sharma is not here to make you laugh, or cry, or think, or, well, do anything at all actually with your brains. From courting multiple women in his previous big screen outing of no ripple, the fallen badshah of television comedy, makes a comeback to public eye by weaving a pre-Partition British era pind di story where there is everything but comedy, an act he is singularly good with.

In fact, you amble along his do-gooder story of a simpleton Punjabi munda falling for a coy village belle Sargi, joins a White businessman as an orderly, takes pride in serving thegoras even as Gandhi is on a roll with the Swadeshi Movement.

Howsoever indulgent you may be about Kapil of the erstwhile The Kapil Sharma Show, Firangi is not half as engaging despite an earnest effort by the lead actor and producer of the film. Amid the raja, the gora, Gandhi, pind simpletons, Hindu Muslim unity, an Oxford educated princess and what not, the story goes for a toss — from romance, to attempted intrigue, to a loosely designed heist, to family drama to a countryside landscape (much too carefully constructed to look real), there is everything put into the show but all without a soul.

Kapil needs his TV show back, more desperately for himself than for viewers. Still not good enough to carry a feature film on his frail shoulders.

Source: Sunday Pioneer, 3 December, 2017