Happy Bhaag Jayegi: Happy film to go to

Cast: Diana Penty, Abhay Deol, Jimmy Shergill, Ali Fazal, Momal Sheikh

Rated: 6.5/10

The very Punjabi runaway bride is on a romp here and with the very delectable Abhay Deol, the master of undertone. The film, as expected, is halki-phulki romantic comedy on either side of the border. The Pakistani nuances, the tenor across the border, the pithy perceptions about each other and the ambience of Lahore and Amritsar are well cooked up.

Any movie with this title has to be brazenly funny but Happy Bhag Jayegi is funny only in spurts. Despite that, it is engaging as the director has successfully caught on to funny one-liners and observations about Pakistan and India in the most subtle way possible.

Kanwajit, the bride’s father, for example, says (Ajeeb country hai yeh (Pakistan). Yahan bina goli chalaye koi kisi ki sunta hi nahi) sums it up with a swish of humour.

Piyush Mishra as the Pakistani policeman who is forced to take a bus to India by budding politician Abhay Deol is the funniest of them all.

“Kashmir ke alawa kuch bhi poochh lein janab”, he tells a drunk Guddu (Ali Fazal), the runaway bride’s lover boy, whom he has to deliver to Deol for a possible wedding in Pakistan! Mishra has a knack of coming centrestage with the smallest of roles and here he is the best of them all. It’s his excellence to catch and display the finest of points of a character that lend him that rare halo and in this one too he does his best to catch applause as well as eyeballs.

Diana Penty is spunky but has a miserly role. Pakistani actress Momal Sheikh is a washout.

The worst thing is, Abhay Deol is kept at bay and one wishes the romance in him was put on an overdrive. Deol, with his realistic histrionics, is always a delight to be with but in Happy Bhaag Jayegi, despite the camera focus on him, he does not really get to do anything much in the direction you would have liked him to.

Jimmy Shergill as the local Amrisari gunda in pursuit of Happy is a smash hit though again, his role is as miserly as Penty’s. His Punjabi observations of Urdu are pretty funny and the ones to look out for in the film.

All put together, Happy… is happy though it could have been made happier had all these roles were better fleshed out and the humour element expanded.

Still, this one is the movie to go to this week. Source: 

Source: Sunday Pioneer, 21 August, 2016