Cast: Sharman Joshi, Jaaved Jaaferi, Soha Ali Khan, Dalip Tahil and others
Director: Faraz Haider
Rating: 1 star
There are several things about War Chhod Na Yaar that I will never understand – first, why a war comedy involving India, Pakistan, US and China had to be made by someone who is so vacuous he doesn’t know what a cameraman does. Really. In the film, the cameraman sent by a news channel loads the cassette for the reporter (because, you know, she’s from the only news channel that still doesn’t use digital chips). The reporter, in turn, shoots interviews without a microphone and, of course, from behind the camera. When the reporter has to appear in her report, she gets an Army Captain to handle the camera. Why’s the cameraman there? To load cassettes.
Second, if this is a comedy, why did have to throw in all this preachy bhaichara sentiment and a painful romance, with Sufi-inspired songs too? It plays out like a bad Eighties film, packing action, romance and a comedy track – featuring three Afghans and a spy, no less – into several hours, over which our brains are slowly sautéed into pulp.
Third, why did Dalip Tahil, who can barely pull through a single role convincingly, have to act in four?
[quote]Why does he think our chats comprise solely of conspiracy theories?[/quote]
Fourth, why does the director think everyone from India and Pakistan who’s friends on Facebook is a teenager whose vocabulary is largely restricted to, “O teri…”, “Dude”, and “Yep…”, who rolls about in shorts and T-shirt, sharing a bed with two other people at any given time? And why does he think our chats comprise solely of conspiracy theories about what our respective governments are up to, and peacenik pop philosophy? Also, when was the last time a minister visited a Facebook activist’s house to discuss “aman aur shanti”?
Fifth, why do Indian and Pakistani soldiers along the border have such a tough time thinking of songs that begin with “ya” when they play Antakshari over megaphones? I mean…Yeh mera dil, Ya Ali, Yunhi chala chal, Yeh jo des hai mera, Yeh jawaani hai deewani, Yeh dosti…I can think of one in practically every raag!
Now that I’m done with the things I don’t get, let me move on to the things I did. Ruth Dutta (Soha Ali Khan), a reporter who’s apparently famous for sting operations, is called by a minister (Dalip Tahil) to file a fake report from the border. Yet, the troubling assignment doesn’t stop her from gushing to her anchor-friend that she’s fulfilling her dream of going to the border. Eh? Her friend’s response is even more bizarre: “Now that you’ve got your dream assignment, have you found a dream man?”
Right on cue, Captain Rajveer Singh Rana (Sharman Joshi) drives up. I don’t know how a man with the sort of stoned smile that makes you want to slap him just so he’ll stop looking so totally happy can be anyone’s dream man. But everyone in the film is so sex-starved that they scream about mohtarmaas and love over the megaphone, so let’s grant them that.
This is the storyline of the purported war comedy: Captain Qureshi (Jaaved Jaaferi) and Captain Rana trade jokes across the border, with no complaint except stomach upsets and occasional madness from Qureshi’s commanding officer Khan (Sanjay Mishra); this fraternal bond may be broken by the machinations of India (backed by the US), and Pakistan (backed by China, and the US); Ruth must wake up to the unethical-ness of the role she’s playing, and save us all from war.
With comic actors, this could have worked out all right. Without Dalip Tahil, the US’s interference in the subcontinent may even have seemed funny. But, as it stands, we’re so desperate for laughs that we giggle when a few jawaans strip and we see that their boxers are in the colours of the American flag. All pretence of comic engagement fizzles out when Ruth breathes, “Aap dono ke beech mein aisa relation?” after some Qureshi-Rana bromancing.
The film becomes activist fare, the kind that Aamir Khan regularly stars in, with the hoi polloi determined to make-love-not-war, in the wake of Ruth’s exposé. And everything that’s funny is unintentional – like Dalip Tahil’s fake American accent; like the fact that people find Soha Ali Khan attractive; like the moment when Ruth goes live on television, speaking into the camera, without connecting the satellite uplink; like the fact that the filmmakers think their elaborate scatological gags are hilarious.
What with all its sententious speechifying, and its paucity of comic actors (the only one is Jaaved Jaaferi, easily the best performer in the film), War Chhod Na Yaar feels like Will Ferrell and the Dalai Lama made a baby and let it write a script.
