Starring: Divyendu Sharma, Pratik Gandhi, Avinash Tiwary, Nora Fatehi, Upendra Limaye, Chhaya Kadam, Remo D’Sourza
Director: Kunal Kemmu
A film with a name that has some madness woven into it and pitching itself as an off-track comedy comes with at least a few laughs guaranteed.
Dhanush a.k.a. Dodo (Sharma) is stuck on one childhood dream – of going to Goa with his buddies Ayush (Tiwary) and Pratik a.k.a. Pinku (Gandhi) for some carefree beach-side fun and frolic. While this awkward teen fails to grow out of his childish fantasies or his cramped Mumbai home, both his friends move on with their lives to build successful careers abroad.
Lonely Dodo resorts to creating a fake life for himself, complete with some make-believe travel and a high-flying lifestyle, all of which he stages in his tiny bedroom and then posts on social media in an attempt to feel a little less like a loser. When Ayush and Pratik suddenly decide to visit his “luxury” home in Mumbai to rekindle those childhood memories, Dodo resorts to some quick thinking and steers them towards the Madgaon Express train to Goa instead.
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He uses several not-so-clever tactics to convince them why travelling rough is more in line with this lad’s trip down memory as he tries hard to hide the reality of his state of joblessness. When allergy-prone hypochondriac Pratik accidentally swaps his bag full of pills with one packed with cocaine, their holiday to Goa turns so knotty that even Ayush’s peace-making efforts fail to keep the trio on track.
Will this crazy ride complete with gangsters and undercover cops eventually bring the three pals closer together or will the ordeal simply prove that their childhood bond has failed to survive the test of time?
Three male pals harking back to Excel Entertainment’s hugely successful coming-of-age drama ‘Dil Chahta Hai’, directed by Farhan Akhtar who turns producer for this one, was a good premise on paper. In fact, it is this nostalgia that will connect with a certain set of Bollywood fans who still have fond memories of the first crazy outing to Goa by Aamir Khan, Saif Ali Khan and Akshaye Khanna.
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However, beyond that ‘Madgaon Express’ goes too off-track in terms of its humour, desperately resorting to slapstick with some ‘not funny’ outcomes – in the words of one of the film’s tracks.
The result is one of those time-pass comedy rides that only a few movie buffs may consider jumping on to while it’s streaming on Prime Video, while most others decide to give it a miss.