Khel Khel Mein Movie Review: Akshay Kumar is the MVP of this anything-goes game

The longevity of any relationship, be it romantic or otherwise, is measured by how well you know the other person. But are you sure you could maintain a relationship as it has always been after knowing a person "really" well? The very existence of a true and healthy relationship comes into question when you take a closer look into the lives of your loved ones. This is the single most fascinating aspect of director Mudassar Aziz's Khel Khel Mein.

Director: Mudassar Aziz

Cast: Akshay Kumar, Vaani Kapoor, Fardeen Khan, Taapsee Pannu, Ammy Virk, Aditya Seal, Pragya Jaiswal

This Hindi adaptation of the 2016 Italian film Perfetti Sconosciuti (Perfect Stranger) explores the possibility of mobile phones, cursed for removing people from their real lives, serving as a gateway to their private lives. The film opens with an over-the-top, typically Bollywood-style, character introduction of seven friends (three couples and a bachelor) who are on their way to the wedding of Radhika (Diljot Chhabra), the sister of Vartika Malik (Vaani Kapoor) and the sister-in-law of Rishabh Malik (Akshay Kumar), in Jaipur. Arriving a day before the wedding, the friends have booze at a gathering, where Vartika, the author of 'Nuptial Nonsense', comes up with the idea of a game night. She proposes that everyone place their phones on the table, read aloud every message and email they receive, and attend calls with the speaker on. While the girls are all in, the boys stare at each other as though communicating; they are better off not knowing the others' dirty secrets, fully aware there are secrets. Deciding not to get defensive and unveiling the skeletons in their closet, the boys too join the game. What this night and the game do to the couples in their personal lives and in their friendship with the other participants is what Khel Khel Mein is all about.

If the exciting yet risky prospect of the characters taking a closer look into the lives of their loved ones is the major strength of the film, the second strong point is the casting choice. Akshay Kumar is in his prime in his Desi George Clooney avatar. His profession as a plastic surgeon, possessing expertise in mammoplasty, maintains the mystery of whether he is truly a loyal family man or a Don Juan until the last moment. It was also refreshing to see him in a laid-back role after back-to-back nation-saving and honour-reclamation assignments. The rest of the cast, too, has done a commendable job within their respective scopes, with special mention to Fardeen Khan's Kabir and Aditya Seal's Samar. Taapsee brings a lot of Punjabi energy to the screen as Happy, playing the perfect foil to Ammy Virk's reticent Harpreet Singh. I wish there was more of Vartika; she puts up a mature performance as a woman trying to be the mother of a college girl and also finding luck as an author, but this film does not require her in a longer role. Pragya Jaiswal as Naina for most of the runtime comes across as a ditzy high-class girl who keeps 'daddy-ing' and 'baby-ing', but the game turns her into something impressive.

The challenging story that necessitates the screenplay to be bound in a single location requires a huge amount of drama and engaging lines. The film, thankfully, has an ample amount of both. Jokes land most of the time, and the phone-switch episode was hilarious. The conversation between Rishabh and his daughter is so endearing. The writers have invented novel contentions between each couple and made every phone's ring and message buzz worth the use of 'Parde Mein Rehne Do' from Shikar (1968) as a background score.

The risk involved in making such a film is that a slight deviation from anything serious could seem like a major shift in tonality. Khel Khel Mein does deviate, but before things get squirmy, humour makes a return and saves the film. In addition to this, the dirty secrets of the female characters and their reveal required more pizzazz, as they fell flat in comparison to some exceptionally well-written male errors. When too much indoor drama started feeling like claustrophobia, the director wisely placed the song 'Duur Na Karin', which both made sense and was pleasant to the ears. The film also touches on sensitive issues like infertility, homosexuality, and workplace harassment without leaning on preachiness.

On the whole, Khel Khel Mein is for the audience looking out for a through-and-through mindless comedy with an infectious zing to it. In a crucial scene, Aditya Seal tells Akshay Kumar, who is behind the wheel, that he has missed the airport while delivering a sermon to his wife. It feels like a fourth wall-breaking moment for fans who have had enough of Akshay's serious roles and are dying to see him in a slap-happy zone like this one.