Watch the Krazzy 4 trailer

Shah Rukh Khan’s successful stint as a guest ‘item’ dance boy continues with this inconsequential comic caper. Do not be misguided by the mis-spelt title into thinking that it is the latest sequel to the non-existent ‘Krazzy’ series: it refers to four mentally ill patients.

Raja (Arshad Warsi), Gangadhar (Rajpal Yadav), Dabboo (Suresh Menon) and Dr Mukherjee (Irrfan Khan) suffer from diverse but stereotypical mental conditions and are inmates at ‘We Care Hospital’. Dr Sonali (Juhi Chawla), their psychiatrist decides to treat them to an excursion: an India v England cricket match being played on 15 August, India’s Independence Day.

Enroute, the day trippers bond: they sing a song. Prior to arriving at the game, Dr Sonali stops at her office to collect some documents. She gets kidnapped. It is left to our hapless heroes to rescue her and to unravel the mystery behind her abduction.

This is a welcome attempt to inject slight sophistication into this genre which often relies heavily on slapdash slapstick and crude humour to raise easy laughs. Director Jaideep Sen resorts to set pieces, some witty one-liners and his talented actors in order to breathe fun into the breezy preposterous proceedings.

There are pauses for the obligatory songs but Sen is smart: he gets two of Bollywood’s biggest superstars, the aforementioned ‘King Khan’ and stud Hrithik Roshan to boogie to two separate dance numbers. Additional eye candy is provided with the appearance of a scantily-clad surgically enhanced Rakhi Sawant, Bollywood’s most outrageous current bombshell, who performs a dirty ditty. Consequently, audience interest is sustained.

The film’s major flaw is that it is not as zany or inventive as it could have been: wittier medical and Gandhian jokes were the subject of the hit ‘Munnabhai’ movies. An attempt to instil Indian patriotism is plain manipulative; two emotional reunion romantic subplots are more cloying than moving. The climatic speech by the quartet on society’s maltreatment of the mentally ill is admirable but preachy and overtly sentimental.

This is ultimately a functionally obvious film which is suffers from lazy characterisation and a clumsy conclusion. It ends with an on-screen caption ‘To be continued…’ as the lads return to the sanatorium. Based on the outcome, the producer is probably best advised not to let the boyzz out until his writer comes up with a sane script.

Director: Jaideep Sen, 110 mins, 12A, Subtitles

Stars: Arshad Warsi, Rajpal Yadav, Juhi Chawla, Irrfan Khan, Suresh Menon.

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