For a movie that advertises itself as India’s first war comedy, War Chhod Na Yaar(WCNY) fares reasonably well. A tad more than that perhaps. Partly because it has no Indian precedent(movie on similar topic) to compare it to and partly because except for a few moments now and then, it manages to keep the viewer smiling or laughing. No mean feat that.
WCNY proceedings are kickstarted at the’front’ - the Indo-Pak border. One gets an unmistakable sense of dejavu as commanding officers Raj(Sharman Joshi) and Qureshi(Javed Jafferi) sneak away from their units in the dead of the night to sit across those barbed wires for a game of cards and a quiet swig at the bottle. Very similar to what they showed in the Radico’s 8PM whisky ads a decade ago. Both the camps, especially the Pakistanis are having a tough time out there with shortage of both food and weapons. However, Raj & Qureshi have developed a camaraderie of sorts, being quite literally brothers-in-arms. Their peaceful existence is disturbed when their respective governments start escalating a War at the behest of their Big brothers, USA & China.
What follows is a non-stop cocktail of spoofs, parodies, comedy of manners and humour of every genre you can think of - from the plight of Paki soldiers who are surviving on Daal-ghost to the Chinese Premiere who uses a voice translator to deliver his speeches in ’Shiddhuspeak’. Other notable characters include Commander Khan(Sanjay Mishra) who is in charge of the Pakistani Army at the post manned by Qureshi; Ghuspaithia, the Afhgani infiltrator played by Mukul Dev and of course Rut Dutta(Soha Ali) who is out there shooting for stories.
Between themselves, Javed Jafferi and Sanjay Mishra hold the movie together like two pillars. Comedy is intelligent and well timed with hardly a dull moment or two in between. Sharman for his part appears just a bit overboard. He can often be found stretching himself in order to compensate for that tiny shortage in’physical presence’. I would be erring if I dont make a special mention of Dilip Tahil and his avatars. In an effort immediately reminiscent of Peter Sellers in Dr Strangelove, Dilip can be found’here there and everywhere’. He is the face of’Politics’ - whether playing the Defence Minister or the Pakistani Premier or the Chinese Premiere or the American diplomat(did I miss anything?), he carries every role with aplomb.
There are a few weak links as well. Soha playing a Reporter is far from reassuring. Rather she comes off as underconfident, too confused at times and even lost for the likes of a’Live’ reporter. However since most of her screen space is shared with other actors, her’below par’ performance becomes easier to digest. Secondly, the movie has the occasional drag(e.g Antakshri sessions) and a few loose ends that take away from the experience of watching a’taut’ movie. Thirdly, towards the climax, the humour loses a bit of its steam when the necessity of showing as well justifying a’logical end’ comes into play.
A lot of wry humour may eventually be lost upon a’disinterested’ Indian audience. Its almost as if the director is addressing his audience, a la Commander Khan - "Sapeak to Me!" and nobody’s bothered. The movie not only showcases the plight of the soldiers out in the front and the reckless stateheads who use them for personal gains but it also deals with how the Superpowers(read USA) and’Pseudo’ superpowers(read China) encourage wars purely from an economic perspective of selling weapons or even creating’demand’ for their’products’, e.g, spreading dandruff to sell shampoo!
Themes and messages apart, WCNY is an enjoyable watch purely on account of its humorous content and the way it is rendered, especially by Javed Jafferi and Sanjay Mishra. Anything else you find amusing, goes down as’bonus’!