High Jack Review: Stoner comedy that is all stoned with no comedy 

Director Akarsh Khurana once attended a party. Alcohol was, of course, freely flowing, but it is possible that some other substances mingled with everyone's bodily fluids. He had fun, we presume. He also watched others having fun and doing things that were hilarious to his eyes. He thought filming them might be fun. He then had other jackpot ideas (among other things in his head). Why not film this and show it to perfectly sober (an assumption) people in a theatre? Surely it is job well done if they find it even half as hilarious as he does. Khurana wants to take it even further. Let me place this scenario in an airplane. How about an airplane full of high people getting hijacked? He liked the wordplay. He decided that's what he is going to do. He managed to find buyers. Shocking. He probably shared those substances with them.

Cast: Sumeet Vyas, Mantra Mugdh, Kumud Mishra
Director: Akarsh Khurana

Akarsh Khurana literalises stoner comedy. He thinks if being part of a crowd buzzing and buzzed on all fronts is fun, watching it inside an airplane should be double the fun. Sadly, he couldn't be more wrong. Nothing is good on a flight. People get cranky. Children make parents regret their past. Food tastes bad. Everyone's mood has gone for a toss. Even empathy is manufactured and sold at an exorbitant rate. Why would a hijack plan gone wrong with a bunch of people abusing substance be any different? Rakesh (Sumeet Vyas) -- who wants to be DJ Rockesh -- manages to find himself inside a flight, with narcotics in his bags and a hangover in his head. He has annoying co-passengers on all sides. Kumud Mishra plays Taneja, a man with a bunch of sexual harassment charges against him and an unending barrage of transphobic comments inside him. This is the kind of movie where the woman pilot advises the hijacker not to be a sexist. Not in good faith. It is just Khurana (with writer Adhir Bhatt..yes, this film required two writers, why do you ask) winking at us and saying, I can catch your pulse and be clever too, not realising that he lost us long before all this. 

The hijack in High Jack is a clean metaphor for the making of this film. A bunch of people, who have no idea what they are doing waded into filmmaking, liked the two words in 'stoner comedy' without understanding it, and then decided to wing it. Where is that emergency exit?