Khel Khel Mein Review : Another Crap Remake For Akshay Kumar

★★★★★

Khel Khel Mein Review:

I'd like to begin with defaming words for the original work since hardly anybody else would do that. You can remake a good film like Soorarai Pottru and fail, Akshay Sir, but when you are remaking a film that hasn't got any good things, then you certainly have a problem. Khel Khel Mein is a victim of bad choice, be it Akshay Kumar as an actor, Ditto for the rest of the cast, or the director who decided to recreate it in India. I slammed the original flick months ago, so I have no issues doing the same for the remake that blindly copied the idea and forgot to modify it. Aziz's comedy drama starts off well in the first half with some good gags and deep jokes, but the terrible second half destroys the entire film, including the goodwill of the first half.

Mudassar Aziz brings a remake of the 2016 Italian film Perfect Strangers, Khel Khel Mein, which tells the story of seven friends (three couples and one single guy). Those who have seen the original flick or any of those 25 remakes would know everything. The seven friends gather together one night and play a game of keeping their mobile phones on the table and making every message and call public in the room. Of course, many secrets and characters are exposed, and the seven come to the conclusion that none of them actually knew each other, contradicting their earlier opinion that we friends and partners and we don't have anything to hide from each other.

The screenplay attempts to Indianise things for our Hindi audiences and somewhat succeeds in the beginning. However, the translation of humour, emotions, and events goes terribly wrong with the Hindi remake. Perfect Strangers runs on a beautiful metaphor that all seven people decide to forget the entire night and start off fresh, which makes the film meaningless. The Italian flick shows every single person as a culprit, which brings balance and some sort of meaning to its climax. KKM is very restricted about that. Not a single woman is defamed here, so the balance is missing. Now, come to think about it, would Taapsee Pannu say yes to a film where her character is defamed for an extramarital affair? Certainly no. Would any director show three or two leading ladies in bad light? No. Then what's the use of remaking such a film when you can't really convince yourself about breaking boundaries? Why didn't they skip the extramarital affair or anything bad that's got to do with the male characters? Why didn't they skip the "LGBTQ" lecture? Words and scenes like "breast surgery," "gudwaa," "sperm count," "escort services," or anything else fall into the same category as "vulgar." If they think that Indian audiences would not accept the defamation of female characters, then why did they even believe that the same audiences could take it for the male characters? Pleasing a small section of feminists doesn't help the film; it hasn't as of yet.

Speaking of performances, Khel Khel Mein is a mixed bag. Akshay Kumar starts off well and has a few gigantic laughs in his trademark style. He literally uplifts some lame jokes, but what about expressions and variations in acting? I couldn't see any such thing there. Vaani Kapoor is all glam, nothing else. Taapsee is expressionless most of the time, but she covers up decently in that emotional monologue and a scene after that. Pragya looked hot, and her English accents were classy, but as a performer, it was a mid-show. Aditya Seal and Ammy Virk are wasted despite their potential, and Fardeen Khan was better when he was off screen.

Khel Khel Mein's editing is one of the weakest factors here, as the film suffers from pacing issues in the second half. The original Italian flick doesn't have those typical Indian melodramatic scenes and songs, so at least it had a pace, if not the content. KKM has no pace, nor does it have any content. The cinematography, the frame grading, the sound design, and the production value all look low-grade. The songs aren't really mood-setters. They even wasted an evergreen song like Parde Mein Rehne Do by misusing it on occasions. Mudassar Aziz's direction has taken the film down as a whole, while comedy remains the only saving grace. Khel Khel Mein is far from a family entertainer as it exposes matters like condom use, first sex of life at the age of 18 and discussing it with your own father, female escort services for your own brother/his friends, committing suicide because of an extramarital affair/sexual affair, male sperm issues, and a lecture on homosexuality. What's left in the film, then? Nothing. A horrible choice of the original film for a remake.