Saturday, April 12, 2008

Crazy Krazy 4


KRAZY 4 WAS in controversy before its release, not because of its content, but the literal music over its music! Ram Sampat (jingle composer) accused the Roshans of plagiarism. However, the buzz in the filmi circles is that how can Sampat accuse Roshans when he himself lifted the opening music piece from Requiem for a Dream for a Tata Safari ad and quite interestingly got an Abby too for his ‘original’ work!

Krazy 4 tells the story of four not so ‘khush’ guys in a mental hospital in Khandala – Rajpal Yadav, Suresh Menon, Arshad Warsi and Irrfan Khan – each suffers from a mental disorder quite distinct from the other. While Yadav lost it penning a book on freedom struggle, apparently, stuck in a time warp, Menon’s back-story tells the viewers that he was orphaned at an early age and is in the hospital ever since he was four. Warsi suffers from uncontrollable anger and Khan has got a fetish for cleanliness.

Their doctor, Juhi Chawla, wants them to be a part of the ‘normal’ society, and as an exercise, takes them to Mumbai. Once in Mumbai, things sharply take a drastic turn.

Chawla goes to fetch papers from her clinic and is kidnapped by Zakir Hussain. Menon witnesses the crime, but since he has a disorder of speech, he can’t communicate about the kidnapping to the other bunch of Krazy 4.

Why is Chawla kidnapped? Why would a gangster kidnap a mental-doctor? Is the kidnapper really a gangster? Will the Krazy 4 save Chawla from the baddies? All these questions form the narrative and the climax of the film.


The point is the film, though with its fair share of moments, doesn’t have meat enough to sustain viewers for even two hours. The songs could have easily done away with, particularly the Rakhi Sawant song and the car-song with Chawla and the gang.

The few scenes that work are:
The scene where Warsi meets Dia Mirza’s father in the flashback.
The scene where Warsi meets Mirza’s father and fiancĂ© in the present (watch out for the timing of Kenny Desai and Ashwin Mushran, amazing!).
Yadav falling at the feet of an actor attired as Mahatma Gandhi and the actor slapping him on both the cheeks and Yadav quipping, “Baapu aur hinsaa?”

Of the cast, the best act comes from Yadav and Warsi. Khan is fine, but Menon is wasted, a part reason could be that he has no dialogues. Chawla and Mirza hardly have a role to take note. Rajat Kapoor, cast as Chawla’s husband, is fit for the part.

Director, Jaideep Sen, has handled a couple of sequences well; however, climax seems to be a bit too slack.

The break-free song has two versions: shot on Shahrukh Khan and on Hrithik Roshan and no points for guessing it’s Roshan’s act that gets the thunderous applause. A girl of five (may be six!) gleefully gave the byte to electronic media on being asked, “Who is the kraziest of the four?”

“Roshan,” pat came the reply. The film at the best is an average fare for the audiences.

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