Veerey Ki Wedding is by far the year’s scariest movie. Purportedly a romantic-comedy about a macho millionaire heir who angers his would-be father-in-law, the movie does its best — and succeeds — in terrifying the audience with its miserly production quality, preposterous story and put-upon acting.

Veerey is a B-grade enterprise pulled-off by C-grade ambitions right out of the ’90s (director Ashu Trikha’s better-known credits Deewanapan and Alag, both flops, belong to that era). There is no coherency in the plot or how people enter and exit the story; just the basic premise mentioned above and a few throwaway characters.

Pulkit Samrat (Veer) nearly succeeds in killing whatever goodwill he accrued from the Fukrey franchise. The actor redefines the conformist trademarks of a swag-prone hero whose fashion sense is limited to vest-like t-shirts, and whose only character trait is to flex his gym-earned muscles in every scene. Instead of looking cool, he comes off as a spoiled brat who needs to get a job — or at the very least, think of a life path.

Veerey Ki Wedding is a B-grade enterprise pulled-off by C-grade ambitions right out of the ’90s

Clichéd leading men, though, can’t be bothered with real-world problems. They have far more important tasks, like switching their acting prowess between two basic emotions found in next-gen Bollywood youngsters: anger and sarcasm. His character, as you may have guessed, requires neither of these qualities.

The screenplay by Dilip Shukla (on a story by Deepa Bakshi) believes that having your lead actor walk in Salman Khan-esque swag, beat up hoodlums and help the underprivileged with money is enough to make Veer a good guy.

Whenever he’s free, Veer either plays videogames in his home cinema room or romances a good-looking dame (Kriti Kharbanda) who the cinematographer takes ample time to reveal in her first scene (for over a minute, we only see shots of her rear-end and bosom as she screams at Veer, throws ice-cream cones at nearby people and walks away in slow motion).

Clichéd leading men, though, can’t be bothered with real-world problems. They have far more important tasks, like switching their acting prowess between two basic emotions found in next-gen Bollywood youngsters: anger and sarcasm.

As if two shallow characters weren’t enough, the plot wiggles in Jimmy Shergill as Pulkit’s 35-year-old uncle. Shergill plays an angry, middle-aged man who gets three heroines because he is unlucky in love. I can only imagine the dearth of good screenplays Shergill may have been getting that he chose to sign the dotted line on this career-killing catastrophe.

Like the remaining cast (Yuvika Chaudhry, playing a clueless police woman with a Haryanvi accent and Satish Kaushik as Kharbanda’s dad who abhors violence), Shergill has to make a living.

Published in Dawn, ICON, March 11th, 2018