I was very excited and hoping for a super comedy 2 hours when I first saw the trailer of Welcome to Karachi a couple of weeks ago. The day was marked for the movie in advance.
But the movie doesn’t stand up to the promise of the trailer and the laughs are few and far between. Unless you care to laugh at every occurrence of the F word or some similar other slang.
So here are two bumbling middle-aged men (kind of Dumb & Dumber) who land in Karachi because they are what they are and a little help form the weather gods.
What begins is a chaotic, mindless mission to get back to India, which is complicated by pursuing Pakistan’s Intelligence agents, Baloch thugs, the Taliban and the Pakistan politicians.
All the true humor and satire on the current situation in Pakistan is lost in the shallow, almost non-humorous dialogues. What could have been a great spoof, delivers at the most, pedestrian humor that you get tired of by intermission.
The minimal amount of digital enhancements used are poor enough that their complete absence would not have hurt the movie in any way. Arshad Warsi’s performance doesn’t bring anything new, the jokes just aren’t good enough to keep the viewers entertained. Watching Jacky Bhagnani doing the same thing over and over is quite forgettable. The writer could learn a thing or two from Khichadi – the TV serial or the movie.
Verdict: I wouldn’t encourage you to spend on a prime-time show watching Welcome to Karachi this weekend.