An Ode to Past Comedies

If you’ve followed director Kunal Kemmu’s acting career, however, you’ll know the humour is far more diverse and…old-school. Kemmu’s always had great (and underrated) comic timing, and he brings himself to the table with reckless abandon here. There’s a generous dose of modern classics like Dhamaal (2007) and Welcome (2007); I can hear a hidden generation of giggle-starved millennials go “You had me at Dhamaal”. But Madgaon Express is also littered with nods to Kemmu’s own filmography: The stoner-farce from Go Goa Gone (2013) (replace zombies with a Konkani fisherwomen drug mafia); the mistaken-identity madness from Lootcase (2020) (a red bag triggering the adventure); slapstick acting from the Golmaal series (Pratik’s cocaine highs – apart from riffing on the ‘roaring’ masculinity of Singham – feature the best physical comedy since peak-Rohit Shetty and peak-David Dhawan); even sexist chuckles from Guddu Ki Gun (Dodo pushing the Nora Fatehi character forward when the don asks for the “maal”; Dodo kicking a wrestler-like lady in the crotch and asking “it hurts you all there too?”).

Somehow, most of the jokes land, even when they don’t. It’s a familiar template that often mocks its own familiarity. The casting elevates the material. Mirzapur star Divyenndu is the Kemmu stand-in as Dodo, but his side-splitting turn is a reminder that he was first a liquid Pyaar Ka Punchnama star. Scam 1992 star Pratik Gandhi is a revelation as a man that puts the duality of Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (2008) on speed; after a point, the cinema hall started to mark Pratik’s split-personality trickery with preemptive chuckles. Avinash Tiwary turns his buddy-film swag from Tu Hai Mera Sunday (2016) into a weapon. And if there were ever actors who could do justice to characters named Don Mendoza and Kanchan Komdi, they’re Upendra Limaye and Chhaya Kadam; they play up their own typecasting over the years as cheeky innuendo.

The background activity doesn’t miss a beat either: A kid throwing vada-pav in slow-mo at his mother, or an off-screen voice checking for healthy snacks at a counter only to be served samosa and bhajiya. But my favourite gag of Madgaon Express unfolds on the station platform, minutes before departure. The chic NRI duo of Pratik and Ayush are appalled by Dodo’s choice of transport. They react like multiplex audiences watching single-screen potboilers. But Dodo – still hiding his “poverty” – is adamant that they stay authentic to their journey. He is determined to turn back time. In a last-ditch effort to convince them, Dodo resorts to the final word in our cultural lexicon. He launches into a monologue about the greatness of India and Indian Railways. Like preprogrammed zombies alerted by a codeword, bystanders gravitate towards the three friends and surround them. Their chest swells. The Lakshya (2004) theme plays. Trains can wait. Life can wait. Goa can wait. Waiting can wait. The proud stranger must be heard. So what if patriotism is only his punchline?

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