Four Punjabi lads, out on the road, heading from Pathankot to Patiala. Or is it Patiala to Pathankot? Who cares? Because Wild Wild Punjab is nothing but a series of stereotypes about Punjabi ‘mundas’, and ‘kudis’: loud, brash, large-hearted, impulsive, pumped up on bravado and idiocy, doing the hook-up-break-up-drinking-shinking-bhangra-shangra-thing, with at least one monster SUV in the entourage, awash in noisome fart jokes and fluids from all sorts of nether parts. If you can bear to think of ‘Fukrey’ lite, this is it.
You still with me? Okay then, here we go. Khanne (Varun Sharma) has been dumped; said dumpee is about to get hitched, leaving the former heart-broken in the only way Punjabi fellows are allowed to, if you go by Bollywood: getting drunk and peeing on public property, which begs an urgent question: what were their doting mammas doing during toilet training? Or did that essential understanding just pass them by?
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Arore (Sunny Singh) may not like being labelled a sex-fiend, but given his desperation to get on with one woman after another in the backseat of a car, well, what can you say. Jainu (Jassie Gill) lives under his greedy father’s thumb, which is busy counting the loot given by the ‘papaji’ of sonny boy’s would-be-’dulhan’. And Honey Paaji (Manjot Singh) is the kind of softie who will whistle up his fleet of fifty trucks to the rescue of any ‘abla naari’ if he is addressed as ‘veer ji’.
The film’s single-point agenda is to turn Khanne’s massive pity party (sob, guys, she’s left me) into a break-up ‘tamasha’. The mad dash to the ‘mandap’ is peppered by diversions, meant to add new characters and twists, which would have worked if they weren’t so blatantly borrowed. Remember ‘The Hangover’ in which an all-night bender ends up in disaster?
The add-ons feature a ‘nayi naveli dulhan’ (Patralekha) who is fashioned as a ‘bholi Punjaban’: you wonder what the OG Bholi Punjaban played riotously by Richa Chadha will have to say at this un-subversion? The sharpie (Ishita Raj) who thinks vaping is not smoking is meant to be a contrast to the shy bride, but remember what we said earlier? Not one of these characters is memorable, because they are all playing types.
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A jolly cop and a couple of drug dealers in search of a packet of white powder, and a few others join the melee. But it’s all a load of jaded tiresomeness. There is always going to be space for low-stakes, low-IQ comedies. Done well, and most importantly, written with a refresh button, they can be real stress busters. But the genre, and Punjab, deserves better.
Wild Wild Punjab
Director – Simarpreet Singh
Cast – Varun Sharma, Sunny Singh, Manjot Singh, Jassie Gill, Patralekha, Ishita Raj, Rajesh Sharma, Gopal Datt
Rating – 1.5/5
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