Khel with no clear winner

Parbina Rashid

Voila! Akshay Kumar has shed his fake moustache and the acquired ultra-nationalistic aura for Mudassar Aziz, and that’s quite refreshing. The familiar Khiladi plays an unfamiliar game here, but he is in form. We may not agree with Harpreet (Taapsee Pannu) when she calls his character, the flamboyant cosmetic surgeon Rishabh Malik with salt and pepper hair, George Clooney, but there is no denying that he is easy on the eye and his goofiness is endearing. He holds together this desi version of Italian filmmaker Paolo Genovese’s 2016 film ‘Perfetti Sconosciut’ (‘Perfect Strangers’), which is about how smartphones can wreck relationships.

After a cameo by the stunning Chitrangada Singh sets the mood, the first half introduces us to the characters — three couples (Rishabh-Vartika, Samar-Naina, Harpreet-Harpreet) and a singleton (Kabir) — all headed to Jaipur to attend a wedding. It has all the trappings of a stylish film — bling, peppy dance numbers and plenty of fun moments.

But the dream-like sequence soon turns into a nightmare as Vartika (Vaani Kapoor) suggests a game that requires them to surrender their smartphones for the night and they all agree (reluctantly though). Varitka has an ulterior motive. She is a writer and having produced a bestseller titled ‘Nonsense Nuptials’, she is on the lookout for material for her next. As the game begins, skeletons tumble out of their closets and what have we — infidelity, infertility, homophobia, addiction and what not!

Vartika is struggling to bond with Rishabh’s daughter from his first wife. Samar (Aditya Seal) and his wife Naina (Pragya Jaiswal) are trying to come to terms with a freak accident and life in general. Harpreet (Taapsee Pannu) and Harpreet (Ammy Virk) are childless and the pressure to produce an offspring is weighing down on them. Cricket coach Kabir (Fardeen Khan) loses his job after his employers come to know about his homosexuality.

The first half is fun and the jokes land perfectly. Despite predictability factoring in, Aziz’s screenplay keeps us hooked. But, in the second half, as the plot jumps from one revelation to the next, the tone and tenor of the narrative change all too frequently. And in Aziz’s enthusiasm to make ‘Khel Khel Mein’ an out-and-out Akshay Kumar comedy, the gravity of these issues gets somewhat lost. Aziz injects jokes in every situation to dissipate the tension and take the narrative forward. Never moving the focus of the camera away from Akshay’s character, Rishabh the troublemaker and Rishabh the troubleshooter.

But that’s not to say that this ensemble cast does not tick well to bring out the spirit of the theme with the right dose of drama and comic timing.

Taapsee, the chirpy Punjabi girl trying to make her marriage work and also trying to fit in the ‘high society’, is spot-on. Her tackiness amuses and her vulnerability strikes the right chord. Ammy has cemented his position in Bollywood, earlier with ‘Bad Newz’ and now with ‘Khel Khel Mein’. His domineering spouse act and his sulkiness, caused by the shrinking car market and his sperm count, are touching. Pragya’s character of an entitled brat, who enjoys being called a ‘brand ki dukaan’, is a delight to watch. Vaani holds her ground, both in the department of looks and acting. This is Fardeen’s first theatrical outing after 14 years and he makes an impact with his sensitive performance. Aditya seems a little lost despite a well-written character arc.

After much drama that follows, including a couple suicide-bid scene, their ‘khel’ ends in a draw, with no clear winner or no clear loser. We do feel a little cheated, but Aziz springs a surprise in the form of Tanishk Bagchi’s recreated version of Diljit Dosanjh’s 2021 chartbuster ‘Do You Know’. A good Punjabi song can be a potential crowd-puller. Aziz knows that!