A film that mistakes stale for funny
Aap Kaise Ho(1.5 / 5)
If there is one good thing about Vinay Jose's Aap Kaise Ho, it is that it ends in 100 minutes. Yet, it struggles to leave any lasting impact due to lacklustre writing, uninspired performances and an overall absence of genuine humour. Dhyan Sreenivasan, who not only stars in the film but also wrote its screenplay, delivers yet another story centred around man-children, much like his directorial debut Love Action Drama.
Director: Vinay Jose
Cast: Dhyan Sreenivasan, Jeeva Joseph, Divyadarshan, Ramesh Pisharody, Aju Varghese, Sudheesh, Sreenivasan, Saiju Kurup, Tanvi Ram
In a recent interview, Dhyan mentioned that Aap Kaise Ho was inspired by an incident that happened to a friend, leading him to wonder how it would translate cinematically. Now, either the real incident is a lot less interesting than he thinks, or something was lost in translation. The plot revolves around Christy (Dhyan Sreenivasan), who, on the eve of his wedding, gathers with his friends Binoy (Jeeva Joseph) and Sajeer (Divyadarshan) for a bachelor party. What begins as a night of debauchery soon takes a chaotic turn when Christy attempts to rescue a Bengali woman, who has been brought to his flat as a sex worker. This impulsive act lands both Christy and the woman in police custody, throwing his wedding plans into disarray. What follows is a series of misadventures as Christy, Binoy, and Sajeer scramble to fix the situation.
The film starts off pretending to be an irreverent and self-aware comedy, throwing in outdated adult jokes and treating women as little more than obstacles to the protagonists’ ‘fun’. Then, in a bizarre twist, it suddenly expects the audience to take it seriously with a dramatic revelation about the Bengali woman—right after spending an hour serving up prehistoric jokes. The film continues to masquerade as a mindless entertainer, but the real problem is that most of its jokes simply do not land. In a sea of forced humour, there are only two instances that genuinely evoke laughter. One is Christy’s first encounter with Ramesh Pisharody’s police officer character, and the other is a meta-joke about Varshangalkku Shesham, another film starring Dhyan. These moments work as standalone comedy bits, meaning they could have been part of a random social media reel, and the film would not have suffered for it. Otherwise, the jokes are as old as time, relying on the same stale tropes of a bachelor party spiralling out of control.
One particularly excruciating example of the film’s humour is a pun-ridden exchange about iPhone and Samsung, featuring Ramesh Pisharody and Sudheesh’s characters. It is emblematic of the kind of humour the audience is expected to endure—lazy and uninspired. There are also repeated attempts to generate laughs through Malayali characters speaking broken Hindi, but these moments fall flat, lacking any real comedic timing or charm. Also, the narrative hardly makes the audience care about its characters. Christy, Binoy and Sajeer are the kind of irresponsible, carefree men who never seem to face the consequences of their actions.
Speaking of which, women get the short end of the stick here, existing only to nag or serve as plot devices. The Bengali woman, despite the significance of her arc, is barely given the space to be anything more than a plot device. The film attempts to add a layer of emotional weight through her backstory, but this sudden shift feels hollow and forced. The film even teases a rare moment of justice where these loafers finally face the consequences of their actions, but just when you think Aap Kaise Ho might have a point to make, it promptly undoes all of that. Boys will be boys, after all. As if all of this were not enough, the makers have the sheer audacity to slap a ‘To be continued’ card at the end. They genuinely believe there is an audience clamouring for more of this mediocrity. It is almost admirable. Almost.