A laughably sad attempt at comedy

Welcome 2 Karachi
Hindi (U/A) ¬
Cast: Arshad Warsi, Jacky Bhagnani
Director: Ashish R Mohan

Bollywood has never had a strong hold of comedy, often passing off slapstick, cheesy and campy visuals and situations, weak puns and overall crassness as humour. Those that forego the crassness and rely on numbskullery are somewhat appreciated: A certain Rohit Shetty can bear testimony to that.

Unfortunately, when all a film has to offer is forced situations that not even laughter tracks can lift, the audience is left to suffer in silence.

“Welcome 2 Karachi” had an interesting premise. Numbskull 1, rich Gujarati businessman’s son Kedar Patel (Bhagnani), will do anything to get to the US, where he wants to organise Dandiya parties. And, as he tells a US visa application clerk, despite seeking a tourist visa, plans to stay there illegally!

Numbskull 2, Navy officer Shammi Thakur (Warsi), is court-martialled because he single-handedly sank India’s best submarine, and then tried to explain that the vessel is right where it belongs: under water!

Employed by Kedar’s father, the two are supposed to take out a marriage party on a cruise, but leave without them, get shipwrecked, and end up in Karachi.

As is wont of films of this genre, silly shenanigans ensue, leading our numbskulls to be pursued by Pakistani spies, terrorists, Taliban, al-Qaeda and even the US Army, all for different reasons.

Do they manage to get back home? What mayhem do they leave in their wake? After watching the film, one begins to feel that these questions were best left unanswered, with everything, from plot to screenplay to dialogues, so riddled with holes and discontinuities that they could easily be used as industrial-grade sieves!

Bhagnani is on a downward spiral since his mediocre debut in “F.A.L.T.U.”, and Warsi alone can’t hold up the show, despite his comic timing still intact.  As for Lauren Gottlieb, she has little to do in the film, except one dance number where her participation is imagined, and one when the credits roll.

This one is an unwelcome release, it’s only spark of brightness being a gun-battle in Karachi’s embassy district, where globally warring nations comically square off on a much smaller scale.