REVIEW: Delhi Belly

WHEN RITCHIE MET BOYLE

For sheer ingenuity at generating craziness, and merrily cocking a snook at Bollywood conventions, Abhinay Deo's Delhi Belly deserves full marks. I mean, did anyone ever think that a chocolate hero would sport an erection on screen some day, or that an entire character would be devised around his bowel woes? Danny Boyle would be proud of this one. Human faeces play a starring role in most of his films. In this case, the film comes with the tagline, 'shit happens'. And lots of it too. As for Ritchie, his Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels is the prototype for the comic caper genre and DB faithfully follows the cues.

Three buddies Tashi (Imran Khan), Arup (Vir Das) and Nitin (Kunal Roy Kapur) live in a shit hole fit only for rodents and crawlers, with a roof that hangs precariously under the weight of the kathak classes in the upstairs flat. Then Nitin develops a bad case of Delhi belly. His stool samples get switched with a Russian doll carrying diamonds. A mean-as-hell gangster (Vijay Raaz, superb) starts chasing them all over the streets of old Delhi. Another cop joins the fray for different reasons, as does a lunatic whose soon-to-be ex-wife happens to be Tashi's friend Meneka (Poorna Jagannath) and they both keep kissing each other, even though Tashi is engaged to be married to Sonia (Shernaz Treasurywala), who was meant to be the courier for the diamonds in the first place.

None of this explains the madness of the situations writer Akshat Verma conjures up—my pick is an interview Tashi and Meneka conduct with a wannabe starlet (Anusha Dandekar) who also sings, writes trashy poetry and so on. The gags and the bizarre twists keep the story going most part of the way. But the screenplay never hits a crescendo. Perhaps it isn't meant to. At the end of the film, you come out feeling like something was amiss. 

And yet, you've laughed your guts out, applauded some seriously mean dialogues, appreciated the performances (with the exception of Imran Khan, who's serviceable, but certainly not as self-assured as the rest of the cast), the music (yeah, even the 'DK Bose' song fits in nicely with the narrative) and the cinematography. 

Delhi Belly is like a 90-second roller-coaster ride in an amusement park. Thrilling while it lasts, but nothing to take away from once the cart docks.