In Fastey Fasaatey, Amit Agarwal's directorial debut, we have our protagonist in Aakash (Arpit Chaudhary), a banker, whose family wants him to get married in two months. As per their family astrologer, if that doesn't happen, then someone in their family may die. This puts Aakash in a fix. He is in a live-in relationship with his London-returned girlfriend Anisha (Karishma Sharma), which he hasn't told his parents. Moreover, he had lied to Anisha that he is an orphan just to get her sympathy. Things get further complicated when Anisha gets a home-stay arrangement in Aakash's house, and tell his parents that they are married. Now Aakash has to lead a double life and he seeks out his best friend Dev (Nachiket Narvekar) to help him out. Ragini MMS Returns Actress Karishma Sharma Turns Up the Heat Once Again in Her Latest Bathtub Pictures.

That is the kind of plot Fastey Fasaatey tries to scram in its two-hour runtime, that feels endless once the film begins. At one point, Aakash exasperatedly tells his superstitious parents that they are living in the 21st century. I wanted to remind the makers of this slosh the same thing - why give us a film whose plot is so meshed in the '80s? Fastey Fasaatey's premise reminded me of the Malayalam film, Chakkikothoru Chankaran, and even that movie was made in 1988. Save for the idea of live-in thrown about and the many kissing scenes, everything in the movie feels so dated.

Fastey Fasaatey is a movie where a mother thinks a girl isn't bahu material because she wears modern clothes. It's another matter that her own daughter dresses up the same way at her home. Ideally, this would have been quite an apt meta-commentary on the society's outlook towards women. But don't be fooled here; Fastey Fasaatey has no intentions to be anything intelligible. It is just a mish-mash of outdated stuff draped in mini-skirts.

Even if the premise feels dated, it would not have mattered if the laughs poured in. In the hands of someone like Rohit Shetty or Anees Bazmee, who tackled something similar in Golmaal Returns and Mubarakan respectively, we might have had a film remotely entertaining. Fastey Fasaatey, however, stumbles under the inexperience of its debut director, who couldn't pull off convincingly any scene involving mirth, essential in movies like this.

To add to the film's troubles, his set of writers, yes, there are three of them, can't make a single joke work. Two times in the film, there are extended gags made on potty. It wasn't funny as it was cringe-y both the times. I would be amazed if any of the writers thought these gags were funny even in their heads.

The only time I actually laughed out loud was when Anisha's ponytailed father (Bijay Anand, almost unrecognisable) arrives during the climax and screams at everyone, 'Are you on weed?' Answer him, writers, are you?

Even the lazily written characters don't stay with you for long, including the two bumbling servants who irk us every time they land on the screen. The worst of them is the hero himself, a compulsive liar who doesn't even deserve the happy ending that the movie conveniently gives him.

Fastey Fasaatey can't even get the tone right - it roughly skittles between serious romantic fare and a family comedy, and fails to be neither. The editing is equally haphazard - it took 20 minutes for me to realise that a confession scene in the movie is actually Aakash imagining stuff. The movie is so lazy that it tries to pass off what could be Lonavla as Gurgaon and Noida. But fails to discount the hilly terrains and the Maharashtra and Gujarat registration plates on the cars.

As for the performances, not even the best of the talent we have in this country can do anything to lift the trite material that has been served here. So I offer my sympathies with the half-actors in the film, who just go through the motions. Even the decently talented Sharib Hashmi is utterly wasted here.

Yay!

- The Torment Doesn't Last More Than Two Hours

Nay!

- Take Any Aspect of the Film and Add the Prefix 'Bad' To It!

Final Thoughts

At times, we get indie flicks that don't get promoted well and are released in limited screens, but still manages to surprise us with its content. Fastey Fasaatey is such a movie; only in its case, the content is so unbearable that we wonder how anyone agreed to be a part of the project. With a lame premise, bad humour and terrible performances, Fastey Fasaatey traps you in sheer tedium.

Rating:1out of 5

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 21, 2019 09:00 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).