Film review: Angrezi Medium is good for more than a few laughs

Angrezi Medium chronicles the misadventures of two bumbling men, writes Veer Arjun Singh.

The on-screen bickering between Irrfan Khan and Deepak Dobriyal as brothers Champak and Gopi Bansal is a fount of contagious laughter that justifies Homi Adajania’s comedy, Angrezi Medium. The two sweet shop owners fight in court over their joint inheritance — the shop title of “Ghaseetaram” — by day and drink themselves silly over a game of worst confessions at night. The goings-on in Udaipur keep them content, until Champak’s daughter Tarika, played by Radhika Madan, becomes obsessed with the idea of studying in London. This teams them up for good and sets them on a path to get her admission in a UK university where they stumble on the language barrier far too many times to recover in good health.

Angrezi Medium is a light-hearted take on familial ties centered around the quest of a doting father fighting to realise his daughter’s dream. So much so that he is willing to commit his entire inheritance to the mission, pack his bags and move to London for as long as it takes to secure a UK residency. But with his execrable (and unfixable) English, which occasionally manages to charm tourists who come looking for his sweet shop recommended by Lonely Planet, Champak is completely marooned in unfamiliar territory.

English, or the lack of it, though, is not central to Adajania’s plot. The story is built around the father-daughter relationship with the camera firmly focused on Khan and Dobriyal. Sequences when the two are allowed to flourish elicit the maximum laughs, but that still seems like an oversight given the story quickly goes through its extremely talented side cast. Kareena Kapoor Khan as police officer Naina Kohli, whom the two men encounter in London when they arrive with their fake Pakistani passports, is utterly underused given her star power. Pankaj Tripathi as Tony, the human trafficker in Dubai who gets them fake passports, has only a couple of scenes to make an impact. 

The least well-used is Dimple Kapadia as Sampada Kohli, who is thrown right in the centre of action in London to no good effect. The scenes that establish her camaraderie with the two leading men are devoid of any real conversations. One of them has them laughing and getting along while all we hear is background music. The only member of the supporting cast who is allowed to blend into the plot is Kiku Sharda as Gajju, a childhood friend of the two brothers who is called upon to resolve many life-threatening situations.

Khan with his piercings and printed shirts plays Champak as a man who is more progressive than he is allowed to be. He closely mimics the accent and mannerisms of a Rajasthani man catering to tourists. But the script that has brought him to the big screen more than a year after his last appearance does not let him leave a strong impression. He owns every frame he is in, only to be occasionally bettered by Dobriyal whose unbridled antics are unmatched in the industry. The two men carry the comedy, effectively and hilariously.

In two hours and thirty minutes, Adajania and his very many writers deliver a light-hearted film about uneducated but progressive adults outgrowing their small-town beliefs and a young woman embracing family and traditions. The story lacks the atmospherics of Udaipur and is anticlimactic in its storyline but is funny in orchestrated sequences. In these dire times, the film does enough to deserve the modest audience that had come to watch the first day morning show. Angrezi Medium will spread some much needed joy — if enough cinema halls are open in the country.