Veerey Ki Wedding Review: Sexist, formulaic and hackneyed

There are those below-par Bollywood films that come up trumps with their music. It isn’t uncommon for discerning viewers to be impressed by the songs of such efforts, at the very least. Veerey Ki Wedding isn’t such an effort. Its highest point is perhaps Vijay Raaz’s voice as he narrates the unfortunate stuff we must prepare ourselves for onscreen. It must be noted that Raaz’s voiceover appears on three or four occasions (of less than a minute each) in the story. If it weren’t for the man’s inflection and delivery, even my paltry half star rating would have gone a-begging. 

Veer’s (Pulkit Samrat) entry (after much build-up and hype from people near and dear to him) is one for the ages. It brings to mind fight sequences of over-the-top Hindi cinema of the 90s. It is also an ode to Rohit Shetty, except that there aren’t cars blowing up for no apparent reason here. Veer, who has no real job (by the looks of it) belongs to a rich family, and focusses all his time and energy on doing good and defending those who can’t protect themselves. This ‘business of doing good’ has our launda putting his muscles to ample use; force is employed in just about every instance where there is a point to prove.

Director:Ashu Trikha
Cast: Pulkit Samrat, Jimmy Shergill, Kriti Kharbanda, Satish Kaushik

Going back to that grand entry, again: Veer gets news of an ATM heist in progress. He gives chase to the vehicle containing the stolen cash. How he knows their exact location or how he made it there in record time is not explained, of course. He just has a sense of such things, like an all-pervasive presence! Anyway, Veer beats up all the thieves single-handedly (bodies flying metres by the mere touch of his hand, and so forth); his heart is in the right place, though (the film keeps reminding us of this, time and time again). Listening to some of the thieves’ familial sob stories, our hero permits them to take some cash to tide over their woes. Robin Hood would be proud! Even the police inspector who arrives for the investigation smiles when he is told that Rs 1.5 lakh is missing (how exactly he knows that Veer is behind the whole set-up beats me, and it should beat you too). If that wasn’t bad enough, there’s Veer’s close relative, Balli (Jimmy Shergill). The older Balli is treated like a son by Veer’s parents. The perpetually morose man enjoys drowning his sorrows in the bottle and listening to Urdu poetry about lost love - one that is vaguely similar to his own unfortunate brush with it.

Veer’s parents comprise of a father who runs a successful textile business and a mother hell-bent on seeing her sons married. Little do they know that their younger son is in love with Geet (Kriti Kharbanda), a motor-mouthed woman attempting to get Veer on the straight and narrow. The first moments of her introduction to the audience (which culminates in a terrible Mika song by the name of Mind Blowing) has the camera glued to her derrière and chest. She panders to all of Veer’s nonsense eventually, in spite of being projected as this independent and free-thinking individual. As the outwardly stoic Balli prods along, a new woman falls head-over-heels for him. 

Geet’s father is unimpressed with Veer’s penchant for roughing people up, and forbids his daughter from seeing him again. The film is all about how Veer and Balli save their family’s shaan by proving the man wrong. It is quite simple really, but they drag it out so much. 

Mere laughing at the film (not with it) is not an option; supreme boredom creeps in soon, and has the power to put you away for good. Veerey Ki Wedding panders to all the terrible stereotypes many highly commercial films in the same bracket fall prey to, but it stoops even lower every now and then. Sexist, formulaic, and incredibly idiotic, I’d find it impossible to find a single redeemable scene from the film even if I were to watch it multiple times.