Madgaon Express - Dil Chahe Hangover

Madgaon Express - Hindi / Comedy

 Prime Video -   142 mins

Written and Directed by Kunal Kemmu (yes, the actor!) - Madgaon Express is a Dil Chahta Hai meets "Hangover" (not raising expectations with these two genre defining movies). Ordinarily i would have skipped this movie, but two reasons that made me watch.

• I wanted  to see how Kunal Kemmu, a very talented actor, with a brilliant poker faced comic timing, would fare as a writer/director. He does a very decent job. Throwing in plenty of red herrings in the scenes as well as in the dialogue (pay attention to the sign boards), which will make you smile.
• I wanted to see if Pratik Gandhi (our Harshad Mehta) can do comedy. He is good as a hypochondriac Gujarati (again!) "mumma's" boy , who is always in a world of pain! He is particularly hilarious when he ends up inhaling things he isn't supposed to!

The other two leads Divyendu and Avinash Tiwary  ( i try to follow his work, quite a good actor) are also quite good and in general the trimestry is solid. There is a little bit of the story which talks about Divyendu doing what he does and why , which i think was un necessary fluff and we could have got to trip in earnest.

Of the support cast - Upendra Limaye (as Mendonza - his entry scene "face to face" will induce guffaws!) and Chhaya Kadam (as Kanchan Kombdi 😁) are wonderful with the material they have. Especially having recently watched Chhaya Kadam as the kind hearted tea shop owner at the railway station in "Laapata Ladies" - this is very different performance! There is also a surprisingly decent turn by Nora Fatehi, who gets a few scenes to act (and the songs!) and a cameo by choreographer Remo D Souza.

Keep expectations low, skip the songs and the movie is a decent one time watch.