Delhi Belly? Or did you mean Traveller’s diaherrea?

Why the tacky title “Delhi belly”, you may wonder after watching the Khan’s much-awaited movie….maybe the loose watery poop on a red piece of cloth (an upshot of someone’s distressed belly) may be the reason for it! And the tagline “Shit happens” simply accentuates this line of truth! What about the “Delhi” factor? Well, yes the movie for the most part hovers around the smell or color of shit (found abundantly on the Delhi streets) and explores the unhygienic cooking by the city’s roadside kiosk. It also focuses its camera lenses on the narrow and damp Delhi ki galiyan and a jhuggi jhopri that is choc-a-bloc with roaches, muck, and rotting food!
Well, to zig zag back to the movie’s storyline (or the lack of it), there are three guys sharing a shabby house and some revolting habits. The trio is Imran Khan as Tashi Malhotra, Kunaal Roy Kapur as Nitin, and Vir Das as Arup. Tashi has a hot sexy girlfriend (Shehnaz Treasurlywala as Sonia) born with a silver spoon and an ostentatious set of parents. But Tashi’s heart starts to beat for a plain Jane (Maneka) who is a fellow journalist. At this point, you may think that the movie got made by asphixiating Three idiots in the first half with a quartet of some romance from Jaane Tu ya Jaane Na. The only thing that doesn’t take any inspiration from Amir Khan’s ertswhile movies is a bunch of goons chasing the trio in pursuit of some damned diamonds (A liet motif we thought would have died a quiet death long back after being used in myriad Bollywood movies).
Arup on the other hand mouths some trying-be-funny gags and one-liners in the movie, and farts and burps throughout. He even washes his ass with a carton of orange juice! Nitin works in an ad agency and conjures up comic strips (and strangely resembles a comical caricature himself) while being instructed by his boss to change the smile percentage of a cartoon. He also thinks of some creative ways for stopping his lover’s marriage (how about “this girl gave me a blow-job” instead of a regressive “ye shaadi nahi ho sakti”.)
Then there are a bunch of goons who derive some fun moments out of placing a stick on the temple of Sonia (who mistakes it for a gun) and runs like a headless chicken when they complete their reverse countdown of numbers. You have the trio’s landlord who is photographed in comprising positions with a whore by Arup, and is threatened by the latter for money. Incidentally, Arup also photographs a dumb belle (played by Anushka Dandekar) who tots up a number, “I hate you bracket like I love you” with Amir Khan honoring it by his super sonic pelvic thrusts. Only few of these moments really add up to the fun quotient of the movie.
So, after some terrible mix-up (where a bag of shit gets replaced with a box of diamonds), the trio get chased by the goons, and that’s how the song Bhaag DK Bose makes a scintallating entry. Needless to say, the hell breaks loose, and so does all the splinters of the movie.
Apart from the honking of boobs, or mention of English and Hindi #&*% words, there is nothing else that adds up to the raucous adult side of the movie! The movie’s cinematography hovers around the bad and the ugly….be it the verisimilitude view of feces or an inch-deep gash on a dead goon’s head. Mercifully the acting (with the exception of Khan) is top-notch where the actors rise above merely mouthing English lines and a smattering of Hindi cuss words.
So as the credit rolls down, it may not even be possible for you to wrap your head around the movie and wonder what this stuff was all about. The sad part is that even a vantage view of shit doesn’t contribute to the crass humor of the movie. I though the “shitty” moments was handled well in a movie like “Death at a funeral” (which though disgusting was funny enough). The film tries hard to engage audiences with its slapstick silliness but falls short of the same however. All in all, this movie could be a fine experimental effort but not good enough for the palate or taste of the Indian audience!