In Sundays line-up are three of Hindi cinema’s finest when it comes to comic timing, Irrfan Khan, Arshad Warsi and Vrajesh Hirjee. There's also Ajay Devgan, who can underplay to great advantage. And Ayesha Takia, who displays an unexpected talent for mimicry, doing voices which range from a demented Nepali housemaid to an African lion. And a storyline which has a corpse, a crazed killer, a kooky karate expert, a mildly corrupt cop, a batty taxi driver, and his desperate-to-be-a-star companion. And a girl suffering from amnesia.
So what does Rohit Shetty do with this lot in his new film, the remake of a Telugu superhit? Loses the plot, that's what. The script lurches through a series of loosely shot scenes with little or no connectivity, leaving you to draw consolation from the stray sequences in which Irrfan and Arshad shine: the former does a whole series of snappy impersonations in the back seat of a chilly red Ambassador taxi, and the one that is the funniest involves a madly popular nasally-inclined singer-turned-actor in a blue baseball cap, who goes by the name of Himesh Bhai.
But mostly you are left with this — Rajveer Randhawa, (Ajay) chomping on ice cream cones, extracting hafta from petty shopkeepers, and drinking glassfuls of free lassi from a shop which looks as if it is in Surajkund, all colourful Rajasthani buntings, and fake rustic chairs. He and his cronies hang out in police stations which look like sprawling MP bungalows. Just so you don't miss the point (the film is set in Delhi), all kinds of all kinds of identifiable locations are thrown in, like, you know, Rajpath, Rashtrapati Bhavan, Connaught Place, the narrow lanes of Chandni Chowk, and even, oh my, Daryaganj.
Seher (Ayesha) lives in a redbrick apartment block, drives a scooty to work, and makes noises in front of a mike for a living. Suddenly, a Sunday goes missing from her memory, and her tape recorder is full of sinister sounds. Cue for Rajveer to ride to the rescue, and for the movie, which ought to have been a zany thriller-cum-caper, to rapidly turn into a drudge.
The director's previous film, Golmaal, was a make-no-bones-about-it mindless comedy. Sunday is neither a thriller, nor a comedy.
Shubhra Gupta
shubhra.gupta@ expressindia.com

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