Begin review. In the beginning there was darkness. And then there was a hen-chase. And then there was a headache. And then there was darkness again. But the headache refused to go away. End review.

Here’s my choice for “THE scene of the film”: We’re in a penthouse kinda place in Oz, celebrating Lucky (Sonu Sood) aka Kinng’s birthday. There’s an attempt on his life. The assassin escapes on a bike. The Kinng decides to chase him and so – gasp! – jumps off this really, really tall building.

But voilà – he has a parachute. Why does he have a parachute? Now that’s a stupid question. It’s his birthday and the party is in the penthouse of a high-rise, so it makes perfect sense that Kinng’s strapped a parachute on his back. Duh!

Assassin’s on a bike and Kinng chases him, gently floating along on the parachute, but not coming down to earth. Assassin tries taking winding streets – no luck; Kinng is still miraculously slightly above and behind him. The bike’s subject to the vagaries of traffic and traffic-lights, while the parachute simply floats above all the chaos in the streets. What an idea, sirjee!

Anyway, after what seems like an eternity (the second time one feels this, after the oh-so-sublime pursuit-of-the-hen scene), the director decides to cut to the chase (as you can see from this incredibly corny line, today’s not a good day) – so Kinng manoeuvres himself above Assassin’s bike, bobs, steadies himself, dips, lifts Assassin off the bike and, in an elegant solution worthy of Lucius Fox, and all those who think gravity is a con, ascends again, parachute, Assassin and all. And when Kinng figures he’s at a reasonable height, Assassin gets his just desserts.

This sets the tone for the rest of the film, where you sit through an agonising two-and-a-half hours of excruciatingly puerile crap, ridiculously contrived situations and disastrous attempts at humour. The film is not funny (there are a couple of decent lines, though), Akshay Kumar’s wasted (he is capable of so much more when it comes to comedy or action) and any script is conspicuous by its absence.

A lot of people may disagree with me, arguing that movies such as this are best seen after “leaving one’s brain at home”. But why should it be so? Why are we so easily and willingly entertained by such unforgivably horrid bilge?

On the other hand, I’m obviously in the minuscule minority – the film’s been raved about, been lauded, is a candidate for ‘Block-buster of the Year’ and is clearly going to make a lot of money.

Either I’m stupid. Or stupid sells.

Call me finicky, but neither answer makes me happy.

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