If you could spare some of your precious time to get your hands on video
films made in Pakistan [mostly they recycle our blockbusters], you would
appreciate the fact that some films are actually so bad, they are good. Tacky visual
graphics, uninspiring-loud-& downloaded background score, unintentionally
achieved comic timings, repeated punches, textbook in (bad) performances and a taut
plot that would never give any space to anything logical! Ashish R Mohan’s Indian
Dumb & Dumber act WELCOME TO KARACHI falls on that not-so rare category. No
wonder, the Pakistan Government has invited its cast & crew to promote
their film in Pakistan. It’s a first. And I am not sure how far this generosity
will sustain. You laugh ‘with’ most of the comedy flicks; WELCOME TO KARACHI is
the one you laugh ‘at’.
Shammi [Arshad Warsi] & Kedar [Jackky Bhagnani] are two crackpots
accidently finding themselves on Pakistan side of the globe after storm hits Kedar’s
ship. This Pakistan on screen is ready to welcome them with lame ‘Pathan’
jokes, blasts and shootings at every corner joining army shooters from the
United States, Israel, Russia, Ukraine, Nepal and where not. In order to save
their **ses and return to the homeland, their idiotic efforts land them first
in Talibani region and then in detention of US army. In one scene, when showed
a picture of the US president in present, Shammi calls him the actor who played
Mandela in a Hollywood film [Morgan Freeman in INVICTUS]. The film is their
journey back home or probably it never happens [as the climax suggests].
If comparing and counting the number of enjoyable gags, the first half doesn’t
do any bad. Jackky in a particular hospital scene and Arshad in almost every frame
steals the show. Film gets derailed from the track when shifts its gear from
first to second. The uneven, repetitive and ‘turned irritating by now’
screenplay [The credits have an interesting mention of Raj Kundra as one of the
contributors in this exact department] starts testing your patience. If there
is anything constant in the film is either Arshad’s comic timing which is again
too exposed to have any juice left; or Bhagnani’s disinterested acting endeavor
with his equally bad Gujarati accent. How can he be so unbothered in his home-production?
The film also sees a cameo by the veteran Pawan Malhotra. If you don’t follow
his brilliance, I should inform you that he is currently blessing Punjabi cinema
in his own way but this kind of wasted appearances do hurt.
Ashish R Mohan’s WELCOME TO KARACHI might have looked hilarious on paper
but in translation, it does lose its promise to have an out & out ‘laugh
out loud’ experience. No matter how illiterate you are in cinematic
technicalities, poorly done visual graphics would undeniably create a put-off
situation for you. After all, you have paid to watch cinema and not some
low-budget comedy show on TV. Direction goes for a toss especially when all
intentions shrink their focuses to only link the gags one has in the name of
comedy.
At the
end, comedy is said to be the most difficult exercise for an actor. In this
film, it is not; at least it doesn’t look like. Sooner or later, you as a
viewer also don’t bother much with anything going nuts on screen. Film’s
tagline says, “To survive, they must stay foolish”. How true, for the
audiences! I wish I could recommend you to watch it on YouTube but no, even
YouTube these days has a lot better content in the name of comedy! [1.5/5]
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