Wild Wild Punjab

Wild Wild Punjab Movie Review Rating:

Star Cast: Varun Sharma, Jassie Gill, Sunny Singh, Manjot Singh, Patralekha, Ishita Raj, Gopal Datt

Director: Simarpreet Singh

What’s Good: Undemanding watch to relax at home with fun in spurts

What’s Bad: Stereotyping an already over-hyped Punjabi ethos and some toilet and sexist ‘humor’

Loo Break: Tussi ghar par hi to ho—so anytime you want!

Watch or Not?: Depends on what you like for home viewing!

Language: Hindi

Available On: Netflix

Runtime: 110 minutes

User Rating:

When Rajesh Khanna (!) is ditched by his girl for her boss, he wants to end his life. His buddies swarm around him and tell him to teach her a lesson instead, so he will feel good by telling her that he is moving on. For that, they have to reach her wedding venue at Pathankot and that means using Honey Singh’s beloved—his vehicle named Paro. And the road trip is bound to be anything but uneventful!

Wild Wild Punjab Movie Review: Script Analysis

When we say “Road trip” for a movie, whether serious or comic, it must involve misadventures and troubles of miscellaneous hues. This being ‘Wild, wild’ Punjab, it means booze, babes, drug mafias, and the law. Not to forget the deadline of the wedding the buddies intend to gatecrash and the complete surprises—and (for the characters) the shocks!

Rajesh (Varun Sharma) and his three supportive cronies, Honey Singh (Manjot Singh), Maan Arora (Sunny Singh) and Gaurav Jain (Jassie Gill) first land at a wedding soiree (out of choice!) where they sing, dance and get sozzled with free booze. Next morning, two of them have shed their (happily only!) outer garments and an already engaged-to-be-married Gaurav has acquired a bride, Radha (Patralekha Paul).

The Famous Five (apologies to Enid Blyton) now resume the road trip and the contretemps they face include Meera, a college girl in trouble (Ishita Raj) and her mysterious bottle of ‘Homeopathic pills’, a toll booth that they cause to explode (How? Well, that is the closest the humor gets to reprising the unpalatable Fukrey 3!) and a moody policeman (Rajesh Sharma). There are also some goons who are after Meera. Needless to say, Maan falls for Meera.

Then we have ‘small’ issues of pistols that are either locked or misfire, a Jain father (Gopal Datt) who treats his son in the way dirt would refuse to be treated. Of course, the goons help the ‘misadventurous’ cavalcade land at the correct spot where Rajesh’s ex-flame is getting hitched. And now, Luv Ranjan comes into his misogynist own and yet again gets his Pyaar Ka Punch-Nama-meets-Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety tint gleaming.

The humor is frequently toilet level (like Rajesh’s backside being shot and the bullet being removed by a vet—a warped inspiration here from Bhediya maybe!) or sexist (girls are described as willing sex objects who submit to men in cars), while there are superficial emotions as well.

Having shown the Jain community generally as dense, dowry-demanding and undemocratic (Gaurav’s martinet father is played by Gopal Datt with aplomb), the writers decide to play safe and do not show what happens to Gaurav in the end. A tepid remark from Radha that she will win over his family is all that we (and Gaurav) get. By this time, the writers have done sufficient damage to their own clan of Punjabis anyway.

But all this is a serious view. And when I reflect upon it, I find it of little consequence; for this film is another ‘Shut your brains and just enjoy’ kind of whacky adventure and is thoughtfully released on an OTT platform so that one can just snuggle up with family, friends and fried papad for 110 minutes of simple fun.

Wild Wild Punjab Movie Review: Star Performance

Manjot Singh, as the intense and pragmatic Honey Singh, clearly outshines the rest, which is presumably why he has been imported from the Fukrey franchise. That he makes his love for Paro so intense that he is ready to end himself with her (no spoilers here) is a nice touch in a mad adventure. I liked Sunny Singh’s pure Punjabi avatar and funky hairdo. Varun Sharma is thankfully not as irritating as normal (read mainly in the Fukrey franchise!). Jassie Gill is okay, his laidback character not very dissimilar to what he did in Happy Bhag Jayegi Returns.