Starring: Akshay Kumar, Taapsee Pannu, Vaani Kapoor, Ammy Virk, Fardeen Khan, Pragya Tanwar, Aditya Seal, Maahi Jain
Director: Mudassar Aziz
This official remake of an Italian comedy thriller now streaming on Netflix has an intriguing premise revolving around mobile phones and our obsessive-compulsive attachment with these gadgets.
Rishabh Malik (Kumar) is a charming and successful cosmetic surgeon married to a writer Vartika (Kapoor). On the surface, the couple seem to be enjoying marital bliss, of sorts. But as they begin preparing for a big fat Rajasthani wedding gathering with two other couple friends – Harpreet (Virk) and Happy (Pannu) and Samar (Seal) and Naina (Jaiswal) – along with their single friend Kabir (Khan), the façade of normality begins slipping all round.
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A chance conversation about phones leads Vartika to suggest an ostensibly harmless party game involving everyone leaving their phones unattended on the table. The very next message or call received by any member of the group would then be read or played out for all to hear. The women in the group seem to agree almost instantly, with the men having to be coaxed into playing along rather reluctantly.
As expected, what ensues is anything but a simple party game. One by one, every member of the gang is exposed as harbouring a secret of varying degrees of seriousness. Will the gathering emerge from this late-night drunken party game still friends or will the damaging revelations cast a long shadow on their marriages and life in general?
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The film stays true to its playful title in more ways than one and never digs too deep as it takes audiences through an uncomfortable pastime. Given the ubiquitous nature of cellphones in our lives today, it is easy to identify with the separation anxiety that these characters experience over the course of just one night.
The outcome is a very watchable and entertaining plot, which is not allowed to meander too much at just over two hours.
