Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video Review: An Ungainly Mess That Sways Between The Absurd And Asinine

A wholly unexpected turn of events in the holy town of Rishikesh sparks an unholy whirligig in Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video, a slapdash comic romp about a newly-married late 1990s couple sent on a wild goose chase after a CD with a video recording of their suhaag raat vanishes without a trace.

The CD isn’t the only thing that goes missing in the film. Logic and genuine wit do, too. Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video is an ungainly mess that sways between the absurd and asinine. It is never in with a realistic chance of making it out of the maze, not in one piece at any rate.

As for the seedy CD, which is what constitutes the ‘nothing’ over which there is much ado, it inevitably falls into the wrong hands. The felony is reported to the police. The inspector in charge isn’t particularly enthused. The missing object remains untraced till the cows come home.

To be sure, the town swarms with crooks, petty pilferers and blackmailers. The cop is hard-pressed to get his act together. If that were not enough, a ghost pushes its way out of the woodwork. If Rajkummar Rao is here, can a spook be far behind? But not even this weird intervention from the nether world can rescue Vicky, Vidya and their Video from ending up in the dumps.

Even as the distracted policeman beats about the bush, a ransom call is received. All hell breaks loose. Panic gives way to chaos. And chaos triggers a mad scramble. That is pretty much what Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video is: a hopelessly helter-skelter affair that spins on a shaky spindle.

Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video delivers not a whit of what the trailer of the film promised. Like the characters affected by the disappearance of the CD, the film goes round and round in circles. It takes an inordinately long time – over two and a half hours – to deliver the couple, and the audience, from their misery.    

Directed and co-written by Raaj Shaandilyaa, whose first two films were Dream Girl and its sequel, Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video, his third, is a nightmare of a movie, shockingly inept. It is set in a small-town middle-class milieu where an ordinary problem gives rise to a plethora of non-so-ordinary imbroglios.

One would have imagined that Shaandilyaa, who built his career around gags penned for television standup acts, possessed the wherewithal to whip up a passable complement of waggish one-liners. He peppers the film to no avail with situations that seek to play up the funnier side of life. One can only chuckle at the sheer futility of the endeavour.

Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video has the feel of an extended skit that aspires to be a runaway laugh riot. It is a riot all right but not in the way, or to the extent, that it wants to be. The film always manages to run in a direction that goes nowhere.

The problem lies principally with a sloppy screenplay, credited to Yusuf Ali Khan, Ishrat Khan and Rajan Agarwal, besides the director himself. The writers never find the sweet spot that could make a difference between the rib-tickling highs that they seek and the laboured and slapdash swing-and-miss jabs at unsophisticated humour that they manage.

A few of the film’s punchlines, taken in isolation, do hit home. That happens not so much because of the words that Shaandilyaa conjures up as because of the consistently peppy performances that the actors deliver even when the writing isn’t a steady ally.

To the credit of the cast, they appear to have full faith in the material and they have a go at it in right earnest. Their efforts pay off for the most part. Sadly, they are in a comedy that is funny for all the wrong reasons.

The two leads, Rajkummar Rao and Triptii Dimri (who, at this point of her career, faces a very real risk of over-exposure) hit their straps from the very outset. The likes of Vijay Raaz, cast as a policeman who flips for a wannabe actress (Mallika Sherawat), and Tiku Talsania, in the role of the hero’s feckless grandfather, wriggle out of the vacuous loops that they are shoved into.

The collective power (for whatever it is worth) that the actors pack into the film serves to draw driblets of value out of those parts of the caper that have something on offer for easy-to-please comedy fans. They do the best they can within the shackles that an insufferably clueless script clamps on them.

But you cannot but take note of the effort Rajkummar Rao puts in. The common-man hero that he plays here – Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video is the actor’s fourth film of the year – is a sharp departure from the personas that he fleshed out in Srikanth, Mr & Mrs Mahi and Stree 2, one of 2024’s biggest hits.  

But it is of a piece with the acting assignments that he has been choosing of late. He was ladies tailor Vicky in Stree. That is the name that his mehndi artist answers to here as well. There is a moment in Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video that harks back to Stree 2, but there is little else in common between the two roles with the exception of the comic vein. This film is a dud. That the lead actor still manages to rise above the ruins is a marvel.  

He plays another man who isn’t defined by his masculinity. He is haunted by fears, hounded by doubts and never quite sure of himself but he carries on regardless even when he is like a hare caught in the glare of a flashlight he cannot escape.

Rao has perfected the art of playing relatable, troubled small-town guys – they all seem to be cut from the same cloth – in subtle ways that add layers and variations to the characters’ behavioural inflections. Despite a script that lends him no support at all, he pulls off a repeat act with a fair bit of effort to spare.

Triptii Dimri as the bubbly doctor-wife whose joy is short-lived is not bad either. But nothing that the actors bring to the table lifts the film out of the morass it is trapped in.

Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video is best left alone. It is a comedy that groans and croaks under the unbearable lightness of its unabashed silliness.