Happy Patel Movie Review: Finally, there’s a comedy film that doesn’t rattle or pack a slapstick punch! More often than not, our sequel and threequel comic capers reinforce garish gags laced with sexism,
sexual innuendoes and punchlines on women’s bodies. But thankfully, after Go Goa Gone and Delhi Belly, here we’ve Vir Das once again taking clichés and flipping the narrative and creating an absurd world. In his directorial debut Happy Patel: Khatarnak Jasoos, his humour operates as satire, couching politics in wit.
Happy Patel is an eccentric, quirky, preposterous film. And yet, it’s not frivolous. The film opens with a hilarious fight sequence between two parties – a local don from Goa and two special agents from the UK. The result? Sakhubai, a maid, loses her life while trying to protect a vase amid this pandemonium. The local gangster also gets shot. He somehow manages to reach home only to be reprimanded by his wife for spilling blood on the floor that she has just cleaned with phenyl.
His nincompoop sons are also indifferent to his fatal injury. He tries to tell them that they’ll have to carry his legacy ahead but his young daughter decides that she’ll be carrying the baton forward. Sakhubai’s toddler son, on the other hand, survives the bloodbath and is adopted by the special agents. Years later, the boy who has been named Happy Smith-Paisley grows up to be a chef. Unlike his fathers who wielded guns, Happy has failed his MI7 tests seven times. But he loves his kitchen and ballet shoes.
Back in Goa’s Panjor, the legacy-bearing daughter Mama now runs her own brand called Mamareal under which she sells fairness creams to fair-skin obsessed Indians. In her words, Mamareal can best be described as “FMCG meets crime”. But Mama is more than an entrepreneur. She’s a dreaded don, who has kidnapped British dermatology scientist Beatrice and has coerced her into manufacturing creams and lotions that can brighten skin tones in 21 days.
MI7 enters the picture and they decide to send Happy to fight Mama in Goa and rescue Beatrice. Thus begins his Indian-fication. Happy is taught to speak Hindi, bargain with vegetable sellers, fight like Rohit Shetty’s heroes, romance Indian women like Shah Rukh Khan and eat without a spoon. Once in Goa, he befriends Geet and Roxy, falls in love with a dancer named Rupa and begins his mission to crush Mama.
Yes, this is a chaotic plot. So, don’t try to find any meaning and logic here. And sometimes, there’s no method to this madness. But it’s the solid screenplay by Vir and Amogh Ranadive that keeps it all together. Kudos to them and co-director Kavi Shastri for creating and executing a 1-hour-59-minute long crisp film just on Indians, their quirks and their obsession with light skin! Here and there, the makers nonchalantly reference the socio-politics of the country, colonialism and Rishi Sunak’s rule, leaving you cackling and chuckling.
Much like his stand-ups, Vir’s voice – wry, reflective and politically aware – remains intact in his directorial outing too. The jokes simply change form, not intent. He pokes fun at the country’s social fabric and cultural contradictions without delivering overt commentary. In that sense, Happy Patel feels like a natural extension of his comic voice. And the best part? Here, we’ve a man who understands women and their agency. Be it Mama or Rupa, they seem to be characters penned and lived by women.
Speaking of defying norms, Happy Patel deserves brownie points for spinning gender roles too. Vir and team break down, unpack and rewrite what happens when a woman and a man lock horns in the climax. It’s not every day that two goons decide to drop their guns and axes and pick up chopping boards and spatulas to fight a cooking competition. Yes, cooking becomes the ultimate way to claim power. Earlier in the film as Happy gets introduced to us while making a mean sandwich in his kitchen, the song ‘Main Hoon Alpha Male’ plays in the background.
It’s in these ironies too that Happy Patel thrives. Happy, a khatarnak jasoos, is after all the poster boy of soft masculinity. As his girlfriend Rupa slaps him as ‘reflex action’ every time he tries to woo her, he patiently lets her slap him a few more times before she can finally become comfortable with his acts of affection. When he feels Geet perhaps getting slightly infatuated with him, his masculinity doesn’t get threatened. And yes, there are oodles of repartees with sexual innuendos too. But never for once do they make your squirm.
The cherry on the cake of this stupendous screenplay is the performances. Vir as Happy is in top form. He’s effortlessly funny. He deserves extra points for his British-meets-Hindi accent. ‘Ladki’ for him is ‘lakdi’ and ‘tum’ for him is ‘Tom’. And every time, he says ‘Tom’, a random British guy appears onscreen, lurking in the backdrop. It’s so bizarre and random that it’s hysterical. Sharib Hashmi does a good job too. The women, Mona Singh – who doesn’t forget to mouth the colloquial ‘men’ at the end of all her sentences – and Mithila Palkar, deserve special mentions.
Mona as Mama is menacing and unassumingly so. She doesn’t blink even once before chopping off fingers, is obsessed with chef Sanjeev Kapoor and his cutlets, and isn’t afraid to slap him when things don’t go her way. This time around, she barters emotional heavy-lifting with some action sequences and it’s nice to watch her intimidate Happy. Mithila as Rupa is scintillating, lighting up the screen each time she appears. Sumukhi Suresh as Sakhubai is delightful.
There are some surprises too. This time around, Aamir Khan plays Mona’s father. He seems to be an extension of himself from Delhi Belly’s I Hate You (Like I Love You). His wicked chutzpah and impeccable comic timing will leave you in splits. And then there’s Imran Khan. Yes, he’s back! He plays international supermodel Milind Morea. As he fights Mama’s men for a Mamareal contract that doesn’t sit well with him, there’s a brief slow-motion moment where he locks eyes with Happy. Bhaag DK Bose plays in the backdrop, washing your heart with nostalgia.
Happy Patel very much belongs to the world of Delhi Belly and maybe even Madgaon Express. It can best be described as a puzzle where the pieces don’t even belong together. And the fact that it doesn’t fit into Bollywood’s definition of a comic caper or our collective consciousness for that matter is what makes the film unique. Happy Patel is a breath of fresh air. The absurdity of it will leave you wanting for more. Don’t miss out on this one! Because films like this don’t come very often.
