Fukrey Returns Review - Why Ruin A Perfectly Good Film?

I would assume being an entity like Farhan Akhtar comes with its own burden. Huge films like Dil Chahta Hai, Don and Don 2 probably have set the standard so high. Myself, being a Fukrey virgin (meaning I’ve not seen the first one), I had very high expectations. Because small films that do well at the box office get me going. They make me have hope in Bollywood. That not only Salman, Shah Rukh and Akshay can put some useless content on the market and it’ll be a success. So, my only question, to the makers of Fukrey Returns is why? Why would you take the legacy of a good film and turn it into this debacle of one.

Fukrey Returns is terrible cinema. From the storyline to the over-the-top acting, to the very similar to Golmaal Again circumstances, it’s just a slogfest from hell. Something I didn’t expect from somebody who has produced films like Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and Dil Dhadakne Do, both very entertaining and exceptional. But, I’m getting off track. This is going to be a very short review. It doesn’t need to be long because I can say that this film is crappy cinema at its finest.

It involves Bholi Punjaban (played by a monotone Richa Chadda) and four useless boys (played by Pulkit Samrat, Manjot Singh, Varun Sharma and Ali Fazal), all more annoying than the one before. Choocha has earned the gift of experiencing premonitions, which Bholi Punjaban decides to use to her advantage. She’s in a debt after she’s been released from jail, by a stereotypical Sooraj Barjatya-type politician. You know, those guys who sit and are only shaving or getting massages as they deviously talk on the phone.

Bholi Punjaban is the best thing about the film. No, not the character, which Richa can’t pull off, something that surprised me, considering that I find her one of the finest actresses in Hindi cinema after smash hit films that left me shocked like Masaan, Ram-Leela and Sarbjit. But here, a progressive character that Farhan and Ritesh Sidwani, co-producers are known for, is left to be a stereotypical bumbling mess. Bholi Punjaban’s name is the only thing that really cracked me up, because when the film got boring or annoying, somebody from the audience would yell, “Chal, Bholi, in logo ko peet daal!”

The Fukras (I do not understand for the life of me why they are called Fukras if the film is called Fukrey …) must run away from her and sometimes do her tedious tasks, including going in a cave, holding badly CGI-d baby tigers and there’s even Richa Chadda in a Sridevi Hawa Hawai getup in a dream sequence where one person is dreaming of her in a very sexual manner, involving butts. A shoutout to Farhan and Ritesh for incorporating in one scene the only things that Bollywood has been talking about this past year – whether Hawa Hawai in Tumhari Sulu or sexually charged, driven, naked, sexy, but controversial dream sequences in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Padmavati.

The Fukras are definitely useless at this point. They have no role. So it’s up to Richa to mop up the mess. The girl tries but she too falters at one or many more points. Unfortunately, I have nothing nice to say about this godforsaken film. Other than a few good jokes, this one is stereotypical, stupid, but I’m going with 2 stars because it never slips to the depth that deplorable cinema of its kind (Judwaa 2 and Golmaal Again does). I’m going with 2 stars out of 5. What a terrible, terrible film.