DELHI BELLY REVIEW: Not just S#!T loads of fun

Here is an adult laugh riot that makes toilet humour digestible without making you throw up

After Salman’s Ready and with Bachchan’s Bbuddah – Hoga Terra Baap comes a comparatively small film for adults that will not only make you laugh out loud but also raise important questions, if you can stomach the unusual way that they have been presented.Abhinav Deo’s Delhi Belly, written by Akshat Verma, is a satirical black comedy that not only entertains thoroughly, but also makes deeper observations of the way modern society has progressed in recent times, specifically the organically shaped moral fibre of Indian society. Needless to say, this is an acquired (dis)taste and not many will like the way the story unfolds. The keyword here is indigestion.

Almost everything in the movie is difficult to digest, but if you step back and allow the makers to register their comment, it is worthy of a huge round of applause. The film is about three young men who are neck deep in s#!t (literally) for reasons disclosed in a few broad strokes. Once that is established, you just need to sit back and enjoy the hilarious madness. Tashi (Imran Khan), a journalist, and his partner Nitin (Kunaal Roy Kapoor) share a ramshackle room with Arup (Vir Das), a frustrated designer/artist. Two women Sonia and Menaka (Shehnaz Treasury and Poorna Jagannath respectively) enter their lives and what happens within a span of a few days is Delhi Belly.

While Tashi is engaged to air-hostess Sonia, he is also attracted to his colleague Menaka (married and just about to be divorced from a trigger-happy Delhi ka Jat). Sonia is conned into delivering smuggled diamonds and Tashi has to deliver the package for her. He passes the job on to Nitin, who is suffering from ‘Delhi belly’ after eating some bad food, who hands it over to Arup. The mess begins when the pack of smuggled diamonds gets replaced with a stool sample of Nitin. The rightful owner of the diamonds is a badass don (a brilliant Vijay Raaz) and he wants them back at any cost.

While Delhi Belly is the story of how the don tries to get his diamonds back, it also packs in a bunch of hilarious sucker punches aimed at arranged marriages, the dowry system, smart men, unwise women, practical women, emotional men, supermen, real men, the belly, the underbelly and almost everything else in between (including an erection that features for probably the first time in a commercially released non-pornographic Hindi film).

The best part of this Aamir Khan production is that it has found a theatrical release and will be talked about as a cult film for generations. It also has one of the most subtle implementations of the catchy OST composed by Ram Sampath. That, along with an almost-lifelike presentation of the mean streets of Delhi by cinematographer Jason West (best known forRock On!!) makes the film a compelling watch. The casting, the quirks, the wit and the pace are almost pitch perfect. By the end, you are left with more than a belly full of grins, laughs and guffaws. Go for it!