The Crew Cut: When Vijay Mallya Stopped Paying Salaries

The Crew
The Crew

Rating: ***

What happens when a sumptuous airline decides to  pull the red carpet and replaces  it with a dread carpet?
Total pandemonium! Director Rajesh Krishnan leans in  to ferret  out some humour  in the  Kingfisher(here rechristened  Kohinoor)crisis. The ‘humour’ includes an  airline official Rajvanshi (Rammakant Daayama) dying on flight with tiers of gold tied to his chest.Our trio of airhostess heroines  are stricken with  congenital  greed.

Ha  ha to that.

From that takeoff point,pun intended, Crew  gets into a  zany mood,unwilling to  let go off  even a single chance  to poke fun at those who think  material  girls are wanton.

 They are , they are!  But  Tabu ,Kareena  and Kriti make materialism  look so mouthwateringly  desirable,it would be a shame to  wag our fingers at them for  going off the  righteous  path for a bit of fiscal fun .

 Kareena especially is a delight  with her tongue-in-cheek performance as  the most material of  the trio of amoral  girls. She is spectacularly spot-on with her comic timing and designer b(r)ags and  doesn’t allow  her character to slow down and  get off the rollercoaster of  life even for a  second.

Interestingly she  is the only one of the threesome with no  leading man.The men , be it  Diljit Dosanjh, Kapil Sharma, Rajesh Varma  or  Saswat  Chatterjee, with their underwritten  roles,  don’t have  it easy in the script .

Tabu, very strangely , is ill-at-ease with her role as  an ageing airhostess who  likes to  get  lewd and abusive at  times. Was she trying to be  Nadira, or just a dramatic actress trying to prove that she too can have  fun when she  wants to?

Adding to Tabu’s  air  of discomfort  is Kapil Sharma who,believe it or  knot,  plays  her husband! Whoever thought of this  bit of casting  must be congratulated  for imaginative velocity.

Prudently,  Kapil is billed as  a ‘Guest Star’ in the  end credits. Considering the  length of  his role, he  is at best  a  guest.

Crew manages to be fun in  spite  of the irreverent cheeky transgressions regarding airline protocols,  or  maybe  because of it.  Nidhi Mehra and Mehul Suri’s writing is high on the carbs barbs and  digs at the  people  who live the good life at the expense of those who  slog  their entire lifetime to keep the home-fire burning.

There is this  airhostess named Komal(Pooja Bhurrah) who keeps saying she will have to  put her child into  a public school as she hasn’t been paid for months. Is Mallya listening? Will he repent after watching this film? Will be angry as his  bratty son has been turned into super-bratty daughter in the film?

Agreed , poverty  is a  good  way to keep your head on  your shoulder.  But it is  the rich who have all the fun.

 Crew is filled with debt-defying potshots at economic absconders and other financial defaulters.  But  why are Maharastrian  women with  a certain body-type  and speech pattern  always cast as househelps  and  cops ? Here it is Trupti Khamkar as a customs officer who gets laughs for the way she looks and talks.

Stop it!

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