Kriti Sanon Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘Crew’ (2024), starring Tabu, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Kriti Sanon, Diljit Dosanjh and Kapil Sharma

March 31, 2024

by Carla Hay

Kriti Sanon, Tabu and Kareena Kapoor Khan in “Crew” (Photo courtesy of FunAsia Films)

“Crew” (2024)

Directed by Rajesh Krishnan

Hindi with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in India and in the Cayman Islands, the comedy film “Crew” features an all-South Asian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Three flight attendants, who are tired of being underpaid and overworked, become involved in gold smuggling, which leads to various shenanigans and mishaps.

Culture Audience: “Crew” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and high-energy slapstick comedies revolving around misadventures and female friendships.

Rajesh Sharma in “Crew” (Photo courtesy of FunAsia Films)

Entertaining and breezy, “Crew” is a unique crime caper about three flight attendants caught up in gold smuggling and getting ahead in a system that wants to hold them back. The cast members’ chemistry and comedic timing are fantastic in this lively story. This is a slapstick comedy that isn’t meant to be entirely realistic, but the movie has realistic themes about worker exploitation and corporate greed.

Directed by Rajesh Krishnan, “Crew” was written by Nidhi Mehra and Mehul Suri. The movie’s three central characters are flight attendants who work for a fictional Mumbai-based company called Kohinoor Airlines, which is the largest airline company in India. All three of the flight attendants also happen to be best friends of different age groups. And all three of them have become frustrated with their flight attendant jobs because they think they are being underpaid and overworked. Kohinoor Airlines has been steadily reducing the salaries of flight attendants and other lower-level workers while expecting them to work the same number of hours.

The three central “Crew” characters are:

Geeta “Geetu” Sethi (played by Tabu), a married woman in her 50s, is a former beauty queen, who has been a flight attendant for the past 20 years. Geeta is happily married to a supportive husband named Arun Sethi (played by Kapil Sharma), but she’s gotten a little bit bored with her life. She worries that she is “past her prime.” Geeta’s dream is to open a restaurant in Goa with Arun. Geeta has anxiety issues and frequently pops pills to calm her nerves. Despite being neurotic, Geeta often likes to act like a wise, older sister to her two best friends.
Jasmine Kohli (played by Kareena Kapoor Khan), a bachelorette in her 40s, has a complicated history with money and is the most materialistic of the three friends. After her parents divorced when she was a child, Jasmine went to live with her mother’s father Nanu (played by Kulbhushan Kharbanda) and developed a close bond with him, but Jasmine has lingering insecurities because of feeling abandoned by her parents. Jasmine’s parents sent her to an elite private school, but she felt that her parents’ financial support could not substitute for the emotional support that she wanted from them. She’s had a rebellious streak since her teenage years. Jasmine’s dream is to be the CEO of her own marketing company.
Divya Rana (played by Kriti Sanon), a bachelorette in her 30s, is the “golden child” of her family. She has always excelled in everything that she’s done, except for one thing: fulfilling her dream of becoming an airline pilot. Divya graduated from a well-known airline pilot program she couldn’t get a job as an airline pilot, mostly because of sexism. Divya’s father is an airline pilot, but somehow Divya has been able to fool her family into thinking that she has a become pilot for Kohinoor Airlines. Divya can be hot-tempered and is the one most likely of the three friends to get into physical fights in self-defense. (For example, she strong-arms a rude passenger who slaps her on her rear end.) Divya is very close to her gay brother Chintu (played by Mohit Gupta), who used to be a computer hacker.

The beginning of the movie shows that a Kohinoor flight has returned to a terminal because of “technical difficulties.” The real reason for this emergency turnaround is that Geeta, Jasmine and Divya are suspects in a conspiracy to illegally smuggle gold bars out of India. The three pals have been detained and escorted to a room for questioning. The interrogation is led by a sub-inspector named Mala (played by Trupti Khamkar), who is eager to have these three women arrested.

Much of “Crew” consists of flashback scenes showing how Geeta, Jasmine and Divya ended up at this point. The trailers for “Crew” already reveal that it all started two years ago, during a flight where an elederly male passenger named Rajvanshi (played by Ramakant Daayama) dropped dead of an apparent heart attack near the flight attendant station. Geeta, Jasmine and Divya discovered that he had gold bars strapped underneath his clothes.

At the time they found these gold bars, all three of the women were having financial issues where they wanted extra money that they didn’t have. Geeta wanted money to open a restaurant. Jasmine was several months past due on her rent. Divya had a student loan debt that she had to pay back in two days. And so, the three friends decided to steal the gold bars without telling anyone else. Of course, this small fortune in gold that gets stolen eventually has people who go looking for it.

The three flight attendants are also feeling financially insecure because there have been news media reports that Kohinoor Airlines is on the verge of bankruptcy. Kohinoor Airlines chairman Vijay Walia (played by Saswata Chatterjee) is vehemently denying the reports and is still living a lavish lifestyle, as if everything is going well with the company. Kohinoor Airlines has a pension program for staffers called the Provident Fund that has been getting a significant portion of employee salaries who want to invest in the fund.

Geeta’s husband Arun has a sister named Sudha Mittal (played by Charu Shankar), a former flight attendant, who is married to Kohinoor Airlines’ human resources chief Pruthviraj “Minoj” Mittal (played by Rajesh Sharma), who is a talkative and corrupt buffoon. Pruthviraj reveals some information to Geeta that changes the trajectory of the story. It leads to some very amusing twists and turns—some more unpredictable than others. Diljit Dosanjh has a standout supporting role as a customs officer named Jaiveer Singh, who had a fling with Divya when she was in college, and he wants to start dating her again after not seeing her for years.

The madcap misadventures and snappy dialogue in “Crew” are consistently funny. Although many of the scenarios are intentionally exaggerated, the friendship of Geeta, Jasmine and Diya is believable—which is essential in order for this movie to be entertaining. Tabu, Khan and Sanon are in top comedic form in “Crew,” which also has hilarious performances by many of the supporting cast members. (There are some emotionally serious moments too.) Even though it’s very easy to predict how “Crew” will end, the unexpected turns in certain parts of the story creates enough suspense that will keep viewers interested in seeing what will happen next.

FunAsia Films released “Crew” in select U.S. cinemas on March 29, 2024, the same date that the movie was released in India.

Review: ‘Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya,’ starring Shahid Kapoor and Kriti Sanon

March 11, 2024

by Carla Hay

“Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya”

Directed by Amit Joshi and Aradhana Sahy

Hindi with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in India and in the United States, the sci-fi comedy film “Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya” features a predominantly Indian cast of characters (with some white people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A robotics engineer, who works for his aunt’s company, finds out that the woman he has fallen in love with is a robot that was programmed by his aunt to seduce him.

Culture Audience: “Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and silly romantic comedies.

Dimple Kapadia in “Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya” (Photo courtesy of FunAsia Films and Nirvana Cinemas)

“Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya” is an overly long, repetitive movie that not only does not justify being 143 minutes, but the film also does not justify its entire existence. This unimaginative comedy relies too much on clichés about a guy falling in love with a “perfect female,” who happens to be a robot. This vapid movie becomes increasingly foolish until it becomes a very bad joke on viewers expecting it to get better.

Written and directed by Amit Joshi and Aradhana Sahy, “Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya” (which means “got s tangled n your words” in Hindi) runs its weak slapstick jokes into the ground very early and then repeats them to irritating levels. Viewers who watch this onslaught of terrible filmmaking will be subjected to watching people in the movie act even worse than their bad dialogue. About the only thing that this time-wasting movie can brag about is that it has pretty scenery and physically attractive leading cast members.

In “Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya” (which takes place mostly in Mumbai, India), playboy bachelor Aryan Agnihotri (played by Shahid Kapoor) is a robotics engineer who works for Robotex, a company owned by his aunt Urmila Shukla (played by Dimple Kapadia), who is demanding and impatient. Two of Aryan’s co-workers are flirtatious Myra (played by Amisha Thakur) and married man Monty (played by Ashish Verma), who gives Aryan simplistic relationship advice, such as “Everything is a compromise.”

“Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya” is so inept and repetitive in its storytelling, it opens with a scene that’s a too-early foreshadowing of the rest of the story. In this first scene, Aryan’s family has arranged a marriage for him that he does not want. When he meets his bride-to-be for the first time, she is wearing a long veil over her face. And he finds out that she’s a robot that malfunctions. But surprise! It’s just a nightmare that Aryan had.

In reality, Aryan’s parents are very worried that he isn’t married yet. When Urmila reminds him that Aryan’s parents are eager to see him settle down and get married, Aryan reminds Urmila that she didn’t get married until she was 40 years old, and she got divorced six months later. Aryan will soon find out that Urmila is more of a meddler in his love life than she appears to be.

One day, Urmila tells Aryan to go to the United States on business. He stays at a luxury villa that the company uses for high-ranking visiting employees. Aryan is greeted at the villa by a woman named Sifra (played by Kriti Sanon), who tells him that she works for Urmila and has been tasked with taking care of all of Aryan’s needs during his stay. Aryan is immediately attracted to Sifra, who seems to seems to “have it all,” in terms of looks, intelligence and personality. Aryan and Sifra become lovers after some flirtations and romantic dates.

The trailer for “Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya” already reveals about 80% of the movie’s very thin plot: Aryan finds out that Sifra is a robot made by Robotex. Her name is actually spelled SIFRA, an acronym for Super Intelligent Female Robot Automation. And she was programmed by Urmila to seduce Aryan as an experiment to see if a human being could fall in love with a robot. When Aryan asks SIFRA how she can so respond so well to his needs, SIFRA says that she can expertly read people’s facial expressions and body language and react accordingly.

What’s a playboy bachelor to do when his family is pressuring him to get married and he’s found his “ideal woman,” but she’s a robot? In a moronic movie like “Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya,” he takes her home to meet his family, introduces her as a girlfriend he’s in a serious relationship with, and then he proposes to her, as they plan a wedding that the family wants to happen as soon as possible. The majority of “Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya” is about Aryan trying to keep it a secret from his family that SIFRA is a robot.

“Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya” fills up some of its time with stereotypical musical numbers that have forgettable music and generic lyrics. Aryan’s family is a predictable clan that is usually found in romantic comedies: large, loud and intrusive. These squawking family members include Aryan’s father Jai Singh Agnihotri (played by Dharmendra); Aryan’s mother Sharmila Agnihotri (played by Anubha Fatehpuria); Aryna’s teenage sister Tim Tim (played by Maahi Raj Jain); and assorted grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins of Aryan.

As the wedding of Aryan and SIFRA approaches, “Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya” becomes a pile-on of ludicrous “close-call” scenarios that usually involve whether or not SIFRA’s battery is charged enough for her to function, or how much memory she has. The worst part of the movie is in the last half-hour when it really goes off the rails with violence. And there’s a misogynistic tone to the plot, because it revolves around objectifying the main female character. An over-used gag in “Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya” is showing what happens when SIFRA malfunctions, but this dreadfully unfunny movie is nothing but a giant malfunction.

FunAsia Films and Nirvana Cinemas released “Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya” in U.S. cinemas on February 9, 2024, the same day that the movie was released in India.

Review: ‘Adipurush,’ starring Prabhas, Saif Ali Khan, Kriti Sanon, Sunny Singh and Devdatta Nage

June 20, 2023

by Carla Hay

“Adipurush”

Directed by Om Raut

Released in Hindi and Telugu versions with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in India, the fantasy/action film “Adipurush” (based on the epic Hindu tale “Ramayana”) features an Indian cast of characters in a world populated by humans and talking creatures.

Culture Clash: A god prince goes on a mission to rescue his kidnapped wife.

Culture Audience: “Adipurush” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching an overly long fantasy film that has terrible visual effects and stupid dialogue.

Saif Ali Khan in “Adipurush” (Photo courtesy of AA Films)

“Adipurush” is a spectacle for all the wrong reasons. Viewers will be watching to see if the tacky visual effects and idiotic plot can get any worse. They do. And at three hours long, this bombastic and mind-numbing fantasy film becomes an endurance test. According to MeaningDB (a database for English-language meanings of Indian words): “Adipurush is a Sanskrit name that refers to the God Ishwara. Adi means first, and Purush means man. The name together denotes First Man/Supreme Person.”

Directed by Om Raut (who co-wrote the atrocious “Adipurush” screenplay with Manoj Muntashir), “Adipurush” is based on the epic Hindu tale “Ramayana.” However, there are enough changes to this movie adaptation, that there’s not much resemblance to the original story. What viewers will see in the movie is just a mishmash of fight scenes and chase scenes that revolve around rescuing a kidnapped princess. “Adipurush” had its world premiere at the 2023 Tribeca Festival.

In “Adipurush” (which takes place in an unspecified time period in India), the main hero is Raghava (played by Prabhas), a god prince who has extraordinary fighting powers. In the beginning of the movie, he’s seen defeating an army of harpy-like demons. Raghava’s loyal and loving wife Janaki (played by Kriti Sanon) soon gets kidnapped by the evil Ravana (played by Saif Ali Khan), a demon king of Lanka. Ravana can sprout 10 heads. The 10-headed Ravana is one of the more laughable (and not in a good way) parts of “Adipurush,” because the visual effects look so fake.

Ravana’s sister Shurpanakha (played by Tejaswini Pandit) actually instigated this kidnapping. Shurpanakha is jealous of Janaki, because Shurpanakha wanted to have a love affair with Raghava, but he rejected her and told her that he was going to remain loyal to Janaki. Raghava’s younger brother Shesh (played by Sunny Singh) also became a target for Shurpanakha’s seductions, but Shesh rejected her too. Shurpanakha tried to harm Janaki, but Shesh thwarted this effort and cut off Shurpanakha’s nose as a result.

Shurpanakha then told Ravana that she wants his help to get revenge on Janaki and Raghava. Ravana sees Janaki and immediately becomes smitten by her beauty and decides that he wants her for himself. This desire led to Janaki being kidnapped and hidden away in the Forest of Panchavati. Raghava, Shesh and many allies then go on a mission to find and rescue Janaki and defeat Ravana and his army.

One of the allies of Raghava and Shesh is a mutant human/monkey named Bajrang (played by Devdatta Nage), who looks mostly like a human, except for his long monkey tail. Bajang also has the ability to grow to the size of a skyscraper building. There are several talking primates in “Adipurush,” and they all look like rejects from director Matt Reeves’ masterful “Planet of the Apes” movies. There are also a few talking bears. The acting performances “Adipurush” range from average to barely watchable.

Perhaps the most ridiculous scene in the movie is when Bajrang finds Janaki in the forest. She is by herself in an open field, where she is unguarded, unrestrained, and not locked up in a room. In other words, it would be easy for anyone to rescue her at that moment. But no. All Bajrang says is that he’s a messenger for Raghava, and the message is that Raghava loves Janaki.

Imagine being a kidnapping victim and a warrior ally has a chance to rescue you, but all he says is, “Nice to see you. I have a message. Your spouse loves you. I have to go now so that your spouse can be the one to rescue you. Goodbye.” That’s essentially what happens in “”Adipurush,” which takes a full hour (the last third of the movie) to show Raghava trying to get to Janaki and the battles he has along the way. Anyone who wants a good adventure story that doesn’t insult your intelligence should steer clear of “Adipurush,” which is nothing but idiotic and very loud movie junk.

AA Films released “Adipurush” in select U.S. cinemas and in India on June 16, 2023.

Review: ‘Shehzada’ (2023), starring Kartik Aaryan, Kriti Sanon, Paresh Rawal, Manisha Koirala, Ronit Roy and Ankur Rathee

February 22, 2023

by Carla Hay

Kartik Aaryan and Paresh Rawal in “Shehzada” (Photo courtesy of PVR Pictures)

“Shehzada” (2023)

Directed by Rohit Dhawan

Hindi with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in Delhi, India, the action film “Shehzada” (a remake of the 2020 Telugu-language film “Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo”) features an all-Indian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: An aspiring lawyer, who was raised in a working-class family, finds out that he is a wealthy heir who was switched at birth by the man whom he thought was his biological father.

Culture Audience: “Shehzada” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, “Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo” and movies that are too long and overload on ridiculousness.

Kartik Aaryan and Kriti Sanon in “Shehzada” (Photo courtesy of PVR Pictures)

“Shehzada” is a pointless and insipid movie remake that did not need to be made. It’s filled with stupid dialogue and ludicrous scenarios that relentlessly insult viewers’ intelligence. Kartik Aaryan’s smiling charisma isn’t enough make this film any good. “Shehzada” (which means “prince” in Hindi) is a remake of the 2020 Telugu-language film “Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo.” Perhaps the worst thing about “Shehzada” is how it changes the ending of the vastly superior “Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo” in a way that is not just unbelievable but it also makes everything in “Shehzada” look like even more of a complete waste of time.

Written and directed by Rohit Dhawan, “Shehzada” (which takes place primarily in Delhi, India) begins by showing how the lives of two men, who used to be close friends, have taken very different paths. Valmiki Upadhyay (played by Paresh Rawal) and Randeep Nanda (played by Ronit Roy) were pals who started their careers as clerks, working for a company owned by the wealthy Aditya Jindal (played by Sachin Khedekar). Randeep married Aditya’s daughter Yashoda (played by Manisha Koirala), nicknamed Yashu, so Randeep was promoted to a high-ranking position in Aditya’s company. Meanwhile, Valmiki remained in the company’s lower ranks.

By a sheer coincidence, Valmiki and Randeep had sons who were born on the same day in the same hospital. However, it looked like Randeep’s son died from breathing problems, according to a maternity ward nurse named Sulochana (played by Sharvari Lokhare). A sympathetic Valmiki decided to secretly switch his son with Randeep’s son, with the help of Sulochana. Conveniently for Valmiki and Soluchana, they are the only two people in the maternity ward when they make the switch.

However, Randeep’s son suddenly becomes conscious. Randeep and his wife Yasu have already seen the “switched” baby whom they think is theirs. Valmiki frantically goes to Soluchana and tells her that they have to switch the babies again, but she refuses, probably because she doesn’t want to get in trouble for her role in this scheme.

When Valmiki goes over to the cribs to switch the babies anyway, Soluchana tries to stop him. Valmiki and Soluchana have a tussle that ends with Valmiki accidentally pushing Soluchana off of a balcony. Valmiki runs away from the hospital in a panic.

After giving it some thought, Valmiki decides his biological son will be better off raised in a wealthy family. Valmiki raises Randeep’s biological son as his own, but Valmiki shows a lot of indifference and disrespect for this child. Valmiki, who is very jealous of Randeep, also gets a twisted sense of satisfaction about knowing this secret.

“Shehzada” then fast-forwards 25 years after the babies were switched. The son who was raised by Valmiki is named Bantu (played by Aaryan, one of the film’s producers), who is really Randeep’s biological son. The son who was raised by Randeep is named Raj (played by Ankur Rathee), who is really Valmiki’s son.

Bantu is confident and extroverted, while Raj is insecure and introverted. A great deal of “Shehzada” is about aspiring lawyer Bantu defending Randeep from a ruthless businessman named Sarang (played by Sunny Hinduja), who wants Randeep to give 50% of the company’s shares to Sarang.

What happened to Soluchana, the hospital nurse who is the only other person besides Valmiki who knows the secret about the babies being switched at birth? She’s been in a coma, ever since she fell from the balcony. However, the trailer for “Shehzada” reveals a huge turning point in the plot: Soluchana wakes up from the coma and tells Bantu this family secret about who his biological parents are, and that it was all Valmiki’s idea to switch the babies at birth.

This secret is revealed about halfway through the movie. And it’s the fault of the film’s marketing team that this big reveal is in the movie’s trailer. In “Shehzada,” the reveal looks very fake and awkward. Bantu happened to be in the same hospital as Soluchana, because he was visiting a severely injured Randeep, who had been attacked by Sarang’s thugs. Bantu just happened to be passing by Soluchana’s hospital bed, when she overheard him talking about his father Randeep, and she gasped out this family secret to Bantu.

In between doing acrobatic fight scenes that rely heavily on unrealistic visual effects, Bantu works as a law clerk at a law firm, where his boss is the strong-willed Samara Singh (played by Kriti Sanon), who at first is not very impressed with Bantu. Samara initially thought that Bantu was too immature to work at this law firm. Eventually, Bantu begins courting Samara, he wins her over, and they fall in love with each other. (All of these plot developments are also in the “Shehzada” trailer.)

Meanwhile, Raj (who is very much a secondary character in the movie) is away from home a lot because he has been studying to get his MBA. When he does come back to the palatial home owned by his parents, the morally corrupt Valmiki goes out of his way to be friendly to Raj, because Valmiki knows that Raj is his biological son. When Bantu finds out who his biological parents are, he is emotionally torn. Bantu doesn’t tell Randeep’s family this secret, but Bantu starts showing even more loyalty to Randeep.

And the most cliché thing happens in a movie about two quasi-rival men who were switched at birth: They both compete over the same love interest. Randeep thinks Samara would make an ideal wife for Raj in an arranged marriage. However, Bantu had been planning to propose marriage to Samara. We all know which suitor she will choose in the end.

“Shehzada” has a mindless comedic tone that cheapens the story, compared to the more serious tone of “Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo.” Unfortunately, “Shehzada” (whose total running time is an overly long 145 minutes) has the same pitfalls of many formulaic and forgettable Bollywood action movies: More time and effort were spent on musical sequences and over-the-top ridiculous fight scenes than on crafting a good story and interesting characters. The performances in “Shehzada” are as shallow as the film’s characters. And this movie remake’s atrocious new ending completely obliterates what little credibility that “Shehzada” hoped to have.

PVR Pictures released “Shehzada” in select U.S. cinemas on February 17, 2023.

Review: ‘Bhediya,’ starring Varun Dhawan, Kriti Sanon, Abhishek Banerjee and Deepak Dobriyal

December 12, 2022

by Carla Hay

“Bhediya”

Directed by Amar Kaushik

Hindi with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Ziro, India, the horror comedy film “Bhediya” features an all-Indian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A land developer, who is employed by a company that intends to construct roads in a rural area, becomes a werewolf and is suspected of going on a killing spree of humans.

Culture Audience: “Bhediya” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching predictable horror comedies with stale jokes and substandard acting.

Pictured clockwise from bottom left: Varun Dhawan, Paalin Kabak, Deepak Dobriyal and Kriti Sanon in “Bhediya” (Photo courtesy of Jio Studios)

“Bhediya” is a horror comedy that is neither scary nor funny. It’s a silly werewolf movie where a “surprise reveal” is too easy to predict. The visual effects in Bhediya are overrated and can’t make up for a weak story with too many plot holes.

Directed by Amar Kaushik and written by Niren Bhatt, “Bhediya” (which means “wolf” in Hindi) is just scene after scene of the horror diluting the comedy, and the comedy diluting the horror. The end result is a movie that’s a tonal mess, made worse by the overly exaggerated acting by the principal cast members. The movie’s slapstick comedy is very basic and juvenile, which undermines the serious message environmental protection that “Bhediya” wants to convey.

It’s a movie that tries to do too much in balancing absurdity with real-life issues, but ultimately fails by not being able to do any of it very well. In the beginning of “Bhediya,” two land development employees in their 30s—self-assured Bhaskar (played by Varun Dhawan) and his goofy cousin Janardhan (played by Abhishek Banerjee), nicknamed Jana or JD—go on a trip to visit the small town of Ziro, India. The purpose of this trip is to convince the local people to let the land development company construct a road through Ziro’s forest.

During this trip, Bhaskar (who is the “alpha male” of this duo) and Janardan get acquainted wth two men from Ziro: Jomin (played by Paalin Kabak), who is in his 30s, meets the cousins at the airport and becomes their unofficial tour guide. Panda (played by Deepak Dobriyal) is the liaison officer who has lived in Ziro since he was a child. Therefore, Panda knows a lot Ziro’s secrets.

Bhaskar will soon find out the hard way that one of Ziro’s secrets is that the area has been plagued by werewolves. One night in the woods, Bhaskar gets bitten on the rear end by a black werewolf, which runs away after attacking him. Jomin tells Bhaskar and Janardan that Bhaskar needs immediate treatment from a local veterinarian named Dr. Anika Mittal (played by Kriti Sanon). Bhaskar and Janardan never question why they don’t go to a doctor for humans. It’s one of many sloppily written aspects of “Bhediya.”

It isn’t long before Bhaskar finds out that the werewolf bite has caused him to turn into a werewolf. The rest of “Bhediya” is a drawn-out, redundant caper where Bhaskar is suspected of a series of murders, and he tries to hide his secret identity as a werewolf. Who finds out this secret and when are entirely formulaic in the movie. As for the identity of the black werewolf and why this werewolf bit Bhaskar, the answer to that mystery is also very predictable.

Unfortunately, “Bhediya” has a total running time of 156 minutes, which is excessively too long for a movie that doesn’t have much of a plot. Expect to see a lot of nonsense, including clownish JD shrieking (he has a tendency to scream for his mother when he gets frightened); Bhaskar saying stupid things; and an over-used gag that Bhaskar wears boxer underwear when he becomes a werewolf. As an example of the dimwitted dialogue in “Bhediya,” Bhaskar tries to convince Panda that the werewolf virus can be wiped out by “herd immunity”—as if a pack of werewolves in the community, instead of one or two werewolves, will suddenly make things better.

The action scenes aren’t too interesting because the visual effects look so phony. And because much of the movie wastes time in repetitive scenarios and annoying performances, “Bhediya” quickly becomes a chore to watch. The movie tries to turn into a tearjerker drama in the last 30 minutes, but it just makes “Bhediya” look inconsistent, because it tries too hard to be a wacky comedy for most of its duration. No one is expecting “Bhediya” to be award-worthy, but a movie like this should be more fun to watch instead of being just a long-winded, mindless bore.

Jio Studios released “Bhediya” in select U.S. cinemas and in India on November 25, 2022.