Stink Bomb, Version 2.0

(Published in The Sunday Guardian, on 29 July, 2012, retrieved from http://www.sunday-guardian.com/masala-art/stink-bomb-version-20)

Cast: Riteish Deshmukh, Tusshar Kapoor, Neha Sharma, Sarah-Jane Dias, Anupam Kher

Director: Sachin Yardi

Rating: 1 star

When a grown man has a car called Pamela, and lives with a man called Adi, do you really want to know his story? Sigh. Sid (Riteish Deshmukh) is an out-of-work DJ who pimps his conveniently horny dog Sakru for a living. Adi (Tusshar Kapoor) is an out-of-work actor whose introduction makes you want to walk out. He dresses up as Devdas and calls himself “Adidas”, he poses with an Ekta, and calls himself “Tiger”. He brands himself “Bra.One” and promises support as he cups his pointy chest armour.

When Sid tells him he should stop aspiring to become an actor, since his dad is neither Jitendra nor Dharmendra, it only serves to highlight the pathos of the two lead actors, who’ve failed to break out of low-brow sex comedies despite the influential families they come from.

The dialogue is an orgy of tawdry puns and unsubtle innuendo. Boards that read “Cumless Bhai welcums you” and “La Whore Ka Dhaba” are piled on to lines like, “Only one part of me remains black after using this fairness cream...my eye-balls”, “I’m Bhagyashree... call me BJ” and wordplay on the Marathi “fakt” and Urdu “fakhr”. Sid tells Adi he’ll buy sanitary pads because he’s going through a “bahut buraperiod”.  

Adi goes to a tarot card reader who tells him a woman whose name begins with ‘S’ will bring him luck. So, he falls for a Simran (Neha Sharma). For no good reason, Simran likes him. For no good reason, she says she’s lesbian. She also pretends her partner is Anu (Sarah-Jane Dias), the woman Sid has fallen for after causing her a wardrobe malfunction. Oh, Anu’s a model with a rich Daddy (Anupam Kher) who has Mummy issues. The Mummy is called Rosemary Marlowe – the audience stopped laughing about the seventh time that name was punned on.

Chunky Paney plays Baba3G, a fake spiritual guide who convinces Mr. Marlowe his parents have been reincarnated in two pugs. Of course, this begs twenty different variations of “kutte ka bachcha”. And then, there’s gay humour for the homophobic. Combined with Sid’s tendency to say “dicks” when he means “disc”, and his excitement when he sees the number 1769 – “ek saath sixty-nine”, this allows ribaldry to hit a new low.

The laborious references to Sholay and Deewar and Anand grate, and even cameos by Anupam Kher and Kavin Dave can’t save the film.

The Verdict: If you like this movie, you should probably be auditioning for its sequel.