Movie Review Rating for Khichdi 2: 2/5
Starring: Kirti Kulhari, Rajeev Mehta, Anang Desai, Vandana Pathak, Jamnadas Majethia, and Supriya Pathak Kapur
Aatish Kapadia is the director.
What’s Good: The notion of having a movie featuring all of our favorite characters return…
The bad part is that after bringing them together, the story becomes a boring mess.
Loo Break: You won’t need it if you know you’re watching this for pure entertainment!
Observe or Not? Hansa: Praful, Matlab automatically?
Gratitude: Hansaaa. (Only watch the movie if you can prove that you are an ardent Khichdi fan by filling in this blank.)
Accessible via: Theater Release
Duration: Two hours, one minute
The Khichdi team returns after thirteen years, this time to capitalize on the young actors who play Jacky and Chakki. How come? They only appear for the first two minutes of the film, when they introduce the well-known “bade log.” The oddball opening line, “based on false events,” gives you an idea of the possible plot of the film even before the opening scene is shown.
The opening scene features the Parekh family in a VFX-heavy, less impressive fake helicopter scene with Scamesh Mehta (Prateik Gandhi), whose character is blatantly based on Harshad Mehta from Scam 1992 (because of that godawful ear-screeching inspired BGM). The Thodi Intelligence Agency gives them a mission to free Paanthukistan (not Pakistan) from its despotic dictator, a Praful-looking guy with a beard (Rajeev Mehta). The main plotline of the movie centers on how crazy they’ll get in trying the same.
Review of Khichdi 2: A Script Analysis
Wandering around in Borat’s creative territory without shame, Aatish Kapadia embraces the appropriate amount of slapstick humor. It elevates it to the point where you wonder if going this delirious was necessary. It also gives more substance to the theory explaining why Khichdi was only a television series and not a movie. Even seasoned comedic writers find it difficult to write jokes that will make people laugh nonstop for two hours in a row.
For two hours, there’s nothing more from the berserk gags and screwball punchlines. A lot of them don’t land well, so too soon the movie loses its unique flavor. The goofy one-liners with the Khichdi stamp suit their insane tone.
Review of Khichdi 2: Star Performance
Before delving deeply into each of their unique performances, let me first say that none of them have changed since we first saw them in the show. The fact that they have all maintained the same character traits for more than 20 years is just more evidence of the extraordinary talent these actors possess. As Hansa, Supriya Pathak Kapur does all the heavy lifting (pardon the pun!) and has a distinct style of capturing the sluggish but fun character that we have come to love.
This one features Rajeev Mehta as Praful, and he once again demonstrates why no one else can portray this character quite like him. Anang Desai does a good job portraying the perpetually irritated Babuji. In contrast to the eccentricity she has portrayed in the show, Vandana Pathak’s portrayal of Jayshree in this one is a miss. Since he has been so hilarious on the show, Jamnadas Majethia’s Himanshu also fails to hit the mark. It was superfluous to include Kirti Kulhari as Parminder in the mix.
Review of Khichdi 2: Direction, Score
Because he understands each of these characters so well, Aatish Kapadia is the ideal choice to helm them. His attempt to give the movie’s story an episodic feel by treating it like a television show doesn’t work in his favor. The same problem that plagued me in part 1 still plagues me in this one.
The songs by Chirantan Bhatt are annoying and add pointless clutter to the disorganized “khichdi” of a narrative. The loud and uninspired background score by Raju Singh does not adequately capture the comedic genius of the performers.
Review of Khichdi 2: The Final Word
All in all, this might have worked well when watched during a television break, but the film’s overabundance of cheap jokes could be the source of annoyance.
