It was evident, even before Varun Sharma clambered onto the roof of a car, unfastened his fly and shot out a tall projectile of piss, that Wild Wild Punjab<\/i> was not a serious film. But is it even that wild? The aforementioned scene is probably the looniest thing that happens \u2014 a nod, perhaps, to Fukrey 3<\/i>, which had an entire pee-based plotline dedicated to Sharma. The rest of Simarpreet Singh\u2019s film is oddly strained and docile, a blur of ham-fisted hi-jinks and inane one-liners. \u201cRespect, dude,\u201d someone tells Sharma\u2019s character, a compliment I cannot extend to the film. <\/p>\n Khanna (Sharma) is reeling from a breakup, his girlfriend having grazed off for greener pastures… who could blame her? Khanna\u2019s buddies \u2014 Maan (Sunny Singh), Gaurav (Jassie Gill) and Honey (Manjot Singh) \u2014 rustle up a plan to drag him out of his misery. They will ride down from Patiala to Pathankot, gatecrash the wedding of his ex (Asheema Vardaan), and let Khanna say his piece. None of which, of course, goes exactly to plan, as the quartet gets into manic misadventures motoring down the Punjab countryside. <\/p>\n Director<\/b>: Simarpreet Singh<\/p>\n Cast<\/b>: Varun Sharma, Sunny Singh, Jassie Gill, Manjot Singh, Patralekhaa, Ishita Raj Sharma<\/p>\n Run-time<\/b>: 110 minutes <\/p>\n Storyline<\/b>: Three friends help a fourth bounce back from a breakup by embarking on a road trip across Punjab <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Throughout, writers Sandeep Jain and Harman Wadala\u2014fleshing out a story by Luv Ranjan\u2014traffic in the lowest of cultural stereotypes. The Punjabis in Wild Wild Punjab <\/i>come across as trigger-happy buffoons, boisterous revelers who siphon alcohol from barrels and have a finicky attachment to their wheels. The disparate problems of the state\u2014drug abuse, suicide, gangsterism, illegal emigration\u2014become puerile punchlines. Honey registers as a mustachioed caricature of a gold-hearted Sardar, his benignancy touched off by a woman in distress calling him \u2018Veere\u2019. There is interest, somewhere at the juvenile heart of this film, in examining the dowry problem in Punjab. But all that is undone by lines like, \u201cI\u2019ll slap her…I don\u2019t discriminate between boy and girl,\u201d or everyone referring to Khanna\u2019s ex as \u2018veshya\u2019 (real name: Vaishali). <\/p>\n It is an act of heroic restraint, really, that Pulkit Samrat and Ali Fazal from the Fukrey<\/i> franchise do not make cameos in this film. Sharma, slurry and shit-faced through most of the runtime, taking a belated bullet in his rear end, is barely distinguishable from any of his past roles. Sunny Singh looks more relaxed than he did in Adipurush<\/i>, having traded the bows and arrows for a buzzcut and piercings. For a buddy comedy, the film never convincingly establishes the dynamics of the group. \u201cThere\u2019s a difference between a Sufi and a gold digger,\u201d Maan declares vis-a-vis Vaishali, yet we also learn that he mooches off his best friends. <\/p>\n Wild Wild Punjab <\/i>runs low on horsepower and horseplay. Simarpreet, a debutant director, struggles to choreograph the levels of comedic chaos he clearly aspires to: a chase involving a psychedelic truck, an SUV, a scooter and a police van fizzles out without punch. Near the climax, a bottle of illegal pills is unloaded into chicken feed, yet nothing comes of this promising setup. This isn\u2019t a Hangover<\/i> movie, we\u2019re told, which struck me as less a quip than a frank admission of defeat. <\/p>\n Wild Wild Punjab is streaming on Netflix<\/i><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/th-i.thgim.com\/public\/entertainment\/movies\/u9rcr9\/article67356630.ece\/alternates\/SQUARE_80\/A%20still%20from%20Fukrey%203.jpg\")
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nWild Wild Punjab (Hindi)<\/h5>\n
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<\/picture><\/div>\n\nA still from \u2018Wild Wild Punjab\u2019\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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