At one point in my screening of Happy Patel: Khatarnak Jasoos, the whole audience erupted in cheers. Onscreen, in the scene, Vir Das (as the titular Happy) and Imran Khan (in a dishy cameo as an international supermodel) fly past each other in an action sequence.
So far, the background score has been echoing with ‘Pappu Can’t Dance Saala’, the infectious number from Khan’s 2008 debut Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na. This is already a delightful choice, of course, but in the split second that Khan's and Das's characters lock eyes, we hear ‘Daddy mujhse bola…’, the opening of the infamous ‘DK Bose’ song from Delhi Belly, a film in which Khan and Das co-starred.
Just the snippet is enough. The joke is made, and the music switches back to ‘Pappu’—but this playful wink is a good example of how cleverly Das has put together this new film.
A Bizarre Sense of Humour
Vir Das not only stars in Happy Patel, but also co-directs with Kavi Shastri, co-writes with Amogh Ranadive, and co-creates the music.
Despite these multiple responsibilities, Das’ voice is clear and bonkers: the film takes a great deal from the tone of Delhi Belly (especially the arch soundtrack—my favourite being the ‘Chaanta Tera’ song sequence), which was also made by Aamir Khan Productions. But this one is even more bizarre.
Happy Patel is its own thing, a film in which anything goes. Two British spies are called Agents Tea and Crumpets. Later, we learn that they are a couple who raise Happy as their own after being involved in the death of his birth mother (this minor character is played with relish by Sumukhi Suresh).
Years later, Happy must return to India as a spy for MI6, ostensibly to hunt down the dastardly villain Mama. Mama is pronounced (and spelt in Devanagari) like the word for a maternal uncle, but she is a woman (Mona Singh). She is ruthless— slicing fingers, shooting guns, and regularly cooking cutlets laced with poison. She’s the daughter of Jimmy Mario, a don played in a brief appearance by a spectacularly hammy Aamir Khan.
(Aside: how delightful that Singh and Khan have played siblings-in-law (3 Idiots), mother and son (Laal Singh Chaddha), and now daughter and father!)
The tongue-firmly-in-cheek humour extends to the subtitles too: Hindi dialogue is rendered untranslated in the Roman script, while English dialogue appears both in Roman and (translated) in Devanagari. Meanwhile, Marathi is rendered into English!
Even the opening disclaimers have fun: right after ‘smoking and the consumption of alcohol is injurious to health’, we get ‘social media outrage is also injurious to health’.
Fast-Paced Fun
Action scenes are scored to Bollywood songs. Spices, like haldi, function as weaponry. Food is very much a running theme through the film.
Happy may be excited about being a spy, but his true calling is that of a chef. The big joke is that he’s really the world’s worst spy—trying to shoot guns that have no triggers, getting easily distracted on his mission and being a general chatterbox. But he can charm anyone with one of his many scrumptious recipes. Mama cooks too, of course, and the dream love song I mentioned earlier (‘Chaanta Tera’) also features food. The climax is a face-off between hero and villain—on a cooking show!
There is no larger meaning to any of this. One of the delights of Happy Patel is that it is a comedy that is really only a comedy. Even the slick Crew had a few scenes of sadness and emotion, but this film lobs our way gag after gag, rarely letting the pace lag.
Carrying everything together with incredible finesse is the dialogue—Das is an absolute hoot in particular, affecting a brilliant British accent and then speaking in Hindi, always managing to mispronounce exactly the word that brings laughs.
One particular moment of hilarity comes when Happy speaks rapturously about how he feels like a ch****a and his listeners look mystified…until it dawns on one of them (the dancer Rupa, Happy’s shifty love interest, played by a perfectly cast Mithila Palkar) that he means chidiya!
Das commandeers the screen as though he is onstage in one of his stand-up specials—but Happy Patel is anything but a one-man show. All of the cast get the film’s pitch spot-on, including Sharib Hashmi as Happy’s aide Geet, and Srushti Tawade as his sardonic guide Roxy.
Rarely does a bunch of talented creatives come together to make a joyously kooky comedy—and even less often does the resulting movie work as well as Happy Patel: Khatarnak Jasoos.
Happy Patel: Khatarnak Jasoos released in theatres on January 16.
(Sahir Avik D'souza is a writer based in Mumbai. His work has been published by Film Companion, TimeOut, The Indian Express and EPW. He is an editorial assistant at Marg magazine.)