Khichdi 2

Khichdi 2 Movie Review Rating:

Star Cast: Supriya Pathak Kapur, Rajeev Mehta, Anang Desai, Vandana Pathak, Jamnadas Majethia, Kirti Kulhari

Director: Aatish Kapadia

What’s Good: The idea of bringing all our favorite characters back for a film…

What’s Bad: …bringing them together only to land them in a monotonous mess of a story

Loo Break: If you know you’re watching this for unabashed fun, you won’t need it!

Watch or Not?: Hansa: Praful, Automatically matlab?
Praful: Hansaaa… (Watch the film only if you can fill in this blank, proving yourself to be a die-hard Khichdi fan)

Available On: Theatrical Release

Runtime: 2 hours 1 minute

User Rating:

Thirteen years later, the Khichdi team is back with another film only to exploit the child actors playing Jacky & Chakki. Why? In the entire movie, they’re just there for the first two minutes of introducing the already-known ‘bade log.’ It starts on a quirky note of ‘based on false events’, giving you a taste of what the movie could be about even before the first scene appears on screen.

The Parekh family is back, and the introductory scene shows them in a poorer-than-Adiprush VFX-heavy fake helicopter scene with Scamesh Mehta (Prateik Gandhi), whose character is at-your-face based on Scam 1992’s Harshad Mehta (thanks to that god awful ear-screeching inspired BGM). They’re alloted a mission by Thodi Intelligence Agency to set Paanthukistan (not Pakistan) free from its tyrannical dictator who looks like Praful with a beard (Rajeev Mehta). How much crazy they’ll go in doing the same is what the film’s main plotline revolves around.

Khichdi 2 Movie Review: Script Analysis

Roaming shamelessly in Borat’s zone of filmmaking, Aatish Kapadia unabashedly accepts the level of slapstick it should have. It boosts it to a point that makes you ask yourself, “Was it even required to go this delirious?” It also concretes the theory of why Khichdi could work only as a television show and not as a film. It’s tough for even seasoned comedic writers just to deliver back-to-back gags that would attract guaranteed laughter for 2 hours straight.

There’s nothing else from the screwball punchlines and berserk gags in the whole two hours. Because many of them (especially in the second half) don’t land well, the film loses its distinct flavor too soon. The quirky one-liners with Khichdi-stamp on them work for how lunatic they sound, but the diminishing marginal utility kicks in as the movie proceeds.

Khichdi 2 Movie Review: Star Performance

Before deep-diving into their individual performances, I’ve to say all of them haven’t aged a day since we’ve seen them in the show, and maintaining the same character traits for over two decades only goes on to prove the immense talent all of these actors possess. Supriya Pathak Kapur as Hansa does all the heavy lifting (pun intended!) coupled with her unique way of portraying the lazy yet entertaining character we’ve adored.

Rajeev Mehta, as Praful, gets to be in the center of this one, and he once again proves why we can’t have anyone else play this character better than him. Anang Desai, as the always annoyed Babuji, does his job well. Vandana Pathak as Jayshree is a miss in this one compared to the quirkiness she has depicted in the show. Jamnadas Majethia’s Himanshu, too, misses the target because of how howlarious he has been on the show. Kirti Kulhari as Parminder was an unnecessary addition to the mix.