Audience Bhaag Jayegi. Review on Happy Bhag Jayegi

Story of a runaway bride who jumps into a wrong lorry and finds herself in Pakistan.

There have been movies on runaway brides in Bollywood and ‘Happy Bhag Jayegi’ is an unfortunate addition to the list. This film just surpasses the entertainment value provided by Ranbir Kapoor’s ‘Besharam’ and Abhishek Bachchan’s ‘All is Well’ - couple of worst bollywood movies.

There are 4 key characters to the story:

Harpreet Kaur(Diana Penty): Also known as ‘Happy’, she is a bold and brash girl without any recognized skills to do anything significant in life. Her marriage is arranged with Bagga(Jimmy Shergill)  against her wishes.

Guddu(Ali Fazal): A college drop-out and an aspiring musician who dreams to make it big some day, is the boyfriend of'Happy'.

Daman Singh Bagga(Jimmy Shergill): A Corporator aspiring to be a Minister. He has distributed his wedding cards to all far, near and dear ones and spent a bomb on the wedding arrangements supposedly with ‘Happy’.

Bilal Ahmed(Abhay Deol): Son of an Ex-Governor who is being groomed to be the next generation politician in Lahore, Pakistan. He is already engaged to Zoya(Momal Sheikh – Pakistani actress), daughter of a local Pakistani politician. Bilal’s father dreams of his son scripting a new future for Pakistan while his disinterested son is inclined towards Cricket.

The location is Amritsar where Happy has planned to run away from her engagement ceremony and supposed to jump into a flower laden lorry arranged by Guddu.  The same day a Pakistani delegation visiting Amritsar on an Agro-trade Conference is to return back to Lahore. In a gesture of reciprocation, the Indians send a decorated flower laden lorry with gift items along with the visiting Pakistani guests. Happy has mistaken this lorry to be the one arranged by Guddu. Since the Pakistani delegation has been to India to build diplomatic relations, the lorry goes unchecked at both borders and enters Lahore. Happy finds herself in Bilal’s home without passport & visa. Having learnt of Happy’s plight, Bilal decides to help her by agreeing to get Guddu into Pakistan, to get them married and send them back to India. The trouble is Bagga gets to know Happy’s whereabouts and plans to go to Lahore. He is also joined by Happy’s father. What else….the drama thereon is really confusing, predictable and boring.

Cast: The cast performance was let down by poor script. There was no conviction in the performances of the cast who were convinced the story was headed to nowhere. Diana Penty who plays the lead heroine gives out satisfactory performance but her role was not supported with a good male cast. The three characters – Guddu(Ali), Bagga(Jimmy) and Bilal(Abhay) play a second fiddle and their characters appear very weak. Momal Sheikh, the Pakistani actress’ character brought about a decent and mature performance. Kanwaljit Singh as Happy’s father had nothing significant to do. Piyush Mishra’s role as a Pakistani cop was able to generate bit of comedy.

Direction: Written and Directed by Mudassar Aziz, the film is bland with incoherent script that disappoints and disengages the viewer through most parts of the film. His direction appeared amateurish and not the one that could be hired for commercial cinemas. The romance was nil or at best superficial as if the actors were forced to perform without pay. He could take cues from some of nicely scripted and directed Indian TV Serials on how to write meaningful script and deliver an engaging screenplay.

Songs: Truly speaking, the boring screenplay overshadows any music or songs that may have been inserted without any solid purpose. You will recollect none. Mika Singh’s song at the end towards the credits was a waste as the audience was disinterested.

Pros: Cast, locations and characters in Pakistan

Cons: Poor Script, Boring Screenplay, unimpressive cinematography, careless editing

Conclusion: Contrary to what the title suggests, there is no enjoyment in store for the viewer to see this runaway bride. There is no romance and the comedy is pitiable. Please save your hard earned money for a forthcoming good release that would provide you satisfactory entertainment value. ‘Happy Bhag Jayegi’ is a carelessly made product and will be one of Eros International’s worst movie releases of 2016 which may instead compel the audience to run away from cinema halls.