Coming 2 America

Picking up where things left off 33 years later, Coming 2 America is the sequel no one asked for, but got anyways. As far as continuations go, it’s not that bad. While Craig Brewster (Dolmite Is My Name, Hustle & Flow) isn’t John Landis at the latter’s heyday, he still manages to churn out an entertainer.

Prince Akeem (Eddie Murphy), with his wife from Queens (Shari Headley), is still the crown prince of Zamunda. Despite his short rebellion to marry the girl he loves, nothing much has changed in his life. His father (James Earl Jones), on his deathbed, is still a man of authority; his friend-cum-right-hand man, Semmi (Arsenio Hall) is still cowardly and conniving.

Akeem only has two problems to contend with: one is the law of the country that prohibits any of his three daughters to ascend to the throne; the second is General Izzi (read: Easy; Wesley Snipes), the militant tyrant from the neighbouring country who wants one of two things: Akeem’s head, or to wed his daughter to Akeem’s son.

Akeem, though, doesn’t have a son. That is, until we turn to a flashback of the time before he met his wife. In a state of drug-induced stupor, Akeem had sired a boy he doesn’t know about from a woman he doesn’t remember. The young man is Lavelle Junson (Jermaine Fowler), who lives in Queens and sells tickets in black.

Primarily set in Zamunda, there is very little of America and American culture in Coming 2 America. The story is about family, acceptance, and making one’s own way. If the production was a tad lower in budget, it could have been a better-written Disney telefilm. Unlike the original, the humour is more family-friendly.

Eddie Murphy, and the rest of the cast, are fine, but they can’t hold a candle to Wesley Snipes’s Izzi. I may actually watch the film a second time round just for Snipes.

Coming 2 America is rated PG-13 (FYI: the 1988 original was rated R). The film is streaming now on Amazon.

Coming 2 America is the Eddie Murphy sequel that Wesley Snipes steals while Indoo Ki Jawani could have borrowed a few brain cells

Indoo Ki Jawani

Indoo Ki Jawani, trending at the top spot on Netflix Pakistan, opens with a lusty proposal in a rickshaw from Indoo’s sex-starved boyfriend. His absolute, unflinching insistence catches the rickshaw driver’s eye. When they reach their drop-off, the rickshaw driver turns to the girl and tells her that he was worried the boyfriend would pounce on her. Despite the dialogue, the way the driver looks at Indoo doesn’t feel right; in fact, every man, young, old, hero, villain, looks at Indoo the same way. They’re probably picking up the film’s vibe.

This vibe, then, is Indoo Ki Jawani in a nutshell: a bad film, about lust-driven men, sex-starved women, and the desperate need to lose one’s virginity. How is this on the first spot of the Top 10 list, again?

The 40-Year-Old Virgin this ain’t; it’s much worse. Indoo’s best friend Sonal (Mallika Dua), whose gyaan meter (knowledge meter) animatedly pops up in scenes, tells her friend to watch adult films, and to quickly consummate her relationship with the boyfriend. It would change the way Indoo’s boyfriend sees her. Sonal knows this from experience. It changed her from a strong-willed woman into a subservient wife, she explains; her boyfriend — a scrawny loser, after “doing it”, transformed into an alpha male. How does her argument make sense again?

Then there’s the subplot about a Pakistani terrorist who has slipped near Ghaziabad. Concurrently, a Pakistani visiting Mumbai makes his way to Ghaziabad, finds Indoo on Dinder (read: Tinder) and comes over to her house when her family is away. They argue, watch Kashmir Ki Kali, and when she realises that he could be a terrorist, she makes him hold his urine. How is this entertainment again?

Nothing in Indoo Ki Jawani makes sense. The direction is appalling, the screenplay could have been written in a day, and the performances by Kiara Advani and Aditya Seal are average at best.

Streaming on Netflix with a 13+ rating (how is this suitable for children of 13-plus ages, again?), I wouldn’t recommend Indoo Ki Jawani.

But chances are, since its trending at the top spot, those who want to watch the film wouldn’t care anyways.

Published in Dawn, ICON, March 14th, 2021