Kaalakaandi : Dark humour waylaid

*ing: Saif Ali Khan, Akshay Oberoi, Kunaal Roy Kapur, Deepak Dobriyal, Vijay Raaz, Sobhita Dhulipala, Isha Talwar, Shivam Patil

Big guy Aamir Khan may have given this one a big thumbs-up but Kaalakaandi lives up to its intensely “dark comedy” tag only in bits and pieces.

Saif Ali Khan, who plays a cancer-struck, dying man on a bucket list trip, tries hard, perhaps extra hard, to make the film look extra-ordinary with a stress on making it look like a normal reaction to a hurtling journey into death, but fails to keep up the gusto.

The film starts with Saif getting blow-struck by the unfairness of life — after all, he has never smoked, drunk or even had non-vegetarian food or aerated drinks for that matter. He has maintained a good health graph with enough greens in his diet and sticks to exercise and fitness regimes that make his body look toned and supple. He has no vice to point out in his lifestyle and yet he is struck by none less an abusive disease than stomach cancer.

Obviously, he is down and out, depressed and enraged at fate. And more obviously, he goes for the pill — Ecstasy or some such — to have a night of his life before he literally kicks the bucket. What follows — in the middle of a family wedding with a commitment-phobic bridegroom having the last single romp in the bed with his ex-girlfriend — is a Hangover kind of wild night outing with Saif doing whatever he deemed unfit for human — polished human — consumption in his boring and straight life.

It could have been more hilarious and much more a satire on life itself but Kaalakaandi gets mired in the inane despite flashes of the Saif-type humour trying to save situations.

Call this one a poor man’s satire, comedy — dark or otherwise.

Source: Sunday Pioneer, 14 January, 2018