Madgaon Express Review: Hindi Cinema finally has its own ‘The Hangover’

Madgaon Express, Kunal Kemmu's directorial debut, released on Friday in theatres.

Mid-way between the chaotic Madgaon Express, a character declares with grating frustration “pehle Goa aa nahi paa rahe they. Ab jaa nahi paa rahe hain.” It’s a moment that ties together decades’ worth of cinematic heritage and collective growth; of the buddy road movie that began with Dil Chahta Hai coming full circle in a near frenzied explosion of silliness. All those Goa plans we made along the way, all the adventures we thought we’d have but didn’t. While Dil Chahta Hai offered an introspective journey into the little-tread world of young adult cinema, Madgaon Express feels like a madcap shedding of the reservations, the internet has plastered onto our minds since. To which effect, not only is Madgaon Express a whole lot of silly, stylised fun, but it is also a worthy comment on arrogance of the internet generation.

The story, much like most ‘Goa plans’ begins in the '90s, when Dhanush (Divyenndu), Ayush (Avinash Tiwary) and Pratik (Pratik Gandhi) dream of a Goa vacation with beaches and ‘bikini babes’ as three outspoken, overzealous school-going losers. The three remain lifelong friends in the loosest sense of the term. But not all of them follow similarly rewarding trajectories. While Ayush and Pratik move abroad to make boatloads of money, Dhanush aka Dodo grows up in penury, lusting after material untruths. To fill that void he even crafts a fake online persona. Years later, a random plan brings the three together in Mumbai, for one last attempt at doing that unfulfilled Goa trip. A bag gets exchanged aboard a filthy train and all hell breaks loose in a seaside state teeming with drug gangs, undercover officers and colourful gang-lords.

Madgaon Express is pretty much The Hangover meets the bit about Saif Ali Khan’s ill-fated Goa fling from Dil Chahta Hai stretched into an entire film. It’s pretty basic on plot, but it’s the detailing, and the chemistry between the three friends that powers through weak portions and corny self-indulgence. Crucially, the three friends represent contrasting types. There’s the gullible hunk, the bitter health freak and the joyous underdog. More than the chaos that circles them it’s the banter between the three that walks away with a film that could so easily become victim of its own propulsive gimmickry. That latter bit is supported by Chhaya Kadam and the exceptional Upendra Limaye, effortlessly exotic and primal as a warring former couple. There is also the curious case of a vague Norah Fatehi arc and an underwhelming Remo D’Souza (yes him) cameo that barely make a mark.

Directed by Kunal Kemmu, Madgaon Express isn’t just a barrage of campy but delightful gags offered at the expense of a no-holds-barred template but a meticulously crafted detonation of cinematic tropes. The three friends complement each other, restoring sensitivity to sequences that can at times feel stretched and overstuffed with churlish elements. There is this earnestness to each performance, no matter how thinly veiled their responses to a reality, rapidly unfolding around them might seem. Gandhi is brilliant as the man-child who gets kicked around the most. Tiwary is excellent as the charmer, who in a terrific twist at the end, gets served with the most humbling of reality checks. But the film, much like his breakthrough performance in Pyaar Ka Punchnama belongs to Divyenndu, the smart-talking joker of the three who follows up bad decisions with worse choices but equally witty comments. He is both the impudent hustler and the defeated protagonist of a film that rests on his world-weary shoulders to rifle through all the commotion, with a sense of humanity and romanticism in place.

The producers Excel Entertainment has pioneered the road movie and here they continue the hot streak of adding gloss, if not gravity to the buddy travel genre. There are of course nods to other iconic films along the way, but more significantly there is real pertinence to the roadmap adopted. Two of the three main characters are besotted by social media. The third one practically echoes a generation unwilling to touchdown from the airy altitudes of entitlement and prosperity. Thankfully, though, the film doesn’t guilt them into coming back home but simply observes their detachment for a greater more productive purpose – entertainment.

Kemmu’s assured direction and some incredible cinematography elevates Madgaon Express above several other excursions Hindi cinema has undertaken in Goa. To think that a filmmaker and a studio could still turn an over-hyped region, and a bastardised sentiment into a decidedly loony, cantankerous blowout of candour, characters and nostalgia is impressive. Madgaon Express isn’t quite life-altering in the way that Excel’s previous road films have been but it is maybe the least self-serious of the lot. It’s therefore rewarding to witness Goa as not just the destination for sobering epiphanies, but also as the coming-of-age accident that never quite happened to those who went looking.