Welcome To New York Movie Review: Diljit Dosanjh-Sonakshi Sinha's Tedious IIFA Advert Will Make You Suffer, That Too in 3D

Sometimes when the trailers are bad, there is still hope that you might get surprised when you are inside the theatre to watch the movie. Alas, there is a 99% possibility that what you see (in the promos) is what you get. Before you take the hint about how Welcome to New York is, let's give a brief about the movie. Set against the backdrop  of IIFA (why?), the movie is a meta-comedy with Diljit Dosanjh and Sonakshi Sinha in the leads. Karan Johar, Lara Dutta, Boman Irani and Riteish Deshmukh comprise the supporting cast, while the movie also boasts a plethora of celebrity cameos. Welcome to New York is directed by Chakri Toleti. Here's what we suffered, I mean, felt about the movie...

Gary (Boman Irani) and his team are in charge of handling IIFA in 2017, and his second-in command Sophie (Lara Dutta) proposes an idea of bringing two commoners to the event to promote the sponsors. The idea gets approved, but when Sophie doesn't get the promotion she needed from Gary, she chooses two of the worst candidates possible to ruin the event. So she selects Teji (Diljit Dosanjh) a recovery agent from Punjab who aspires to be an actor, and Jinal (Sonakshi Sinha) a wannabe Gujrati fashion designer. Ever since these two meet on the flight, they spar with each other at every given opportunity while also pausing to take selfies with celebs. There is also an additional subplot of Karan Johar playing a pouty himself and also his evil doppelganger who wants to take revenge on KJo for stealing his thunder.

Welcome To New York is touted as India's first 3-D comedy film, a claim that is wrong on two counts. First of all, it is not India's first 3D comedy film; that credit goes to Telugu movie Action 3D and Marathi film Zapatlela 2. Also it is not a comedy, unless you think having 'balle balle' being played in the background when Teji says something stupid amounts to nitrous oxide. But more on this later.

Though I have not seen the movie, I have heard that the basic premise of Welcome To New York is inspired by Robert Altman's 1994 movie Pret-a-Porter. While the Hollywood movie is set against the backdrop of Paris Fashion Week, WTNY uses IIFA as its setup. Here's where I have to admire the gumption of the makers to use one of the most ridiculed award ceremonies in recent times as the USP of their movie. Welcome to New York would have earned admiration if at least it tried to ridicule how they conduct award ceremonies. But save for a jibe here and there, the movie feels like a two-hour feature length advert for the award function. Hell, Om Shanti Om did a better job of spoofing Filmfare than what this so-called spoof movie even attempts to try. There are occasional gems of mirth but most of the humour falls flat, with random insertion of over-stretched GST jokes. That's Welcome To New York's biggest failing in trying to appraise itself as a satire. In fact, all the 'good' jokes were there in the trailer and that's saying something.

Another 'catchy' feature of the movie happens to be its star cameos that range from Salman Khan, Sushant Singh Rajput, Katrina Kaif, to Rana Daggubati plus glimpses of all celebs who attended IIFA last year (producer's son Jackky Bhagnani even manage to insert two shots of himself in here). But nearly all of them fails to make any kind of an impression. Rana tries to invoke Baahubali in a lame spoofy-performance as himself, who can't get off the spirit of Bhallaladeva. Salman  is just there. The only mirth (intentional) I found was in Sohail-Arbaaz tag-along act and in Katrina and Aditya Roy Kapur trying to talk about acting (unintentional for sure). In fact the only celebs who managed to acquit themselves are the ones who didn't attend IIFA last year.

Even the making is not up to the mark with editing all over the place and the frames looking quite bland. This was not expected from Toleti, who had made stylish thrillers in Tamil in Unnaipol Oruvan (The remake of A Wednesday) and Billa II. The forced infusion of melodrama in the second half, the half baked romantic plot and a farcical climax just make things worse for the viewers. Among the songs, the Smiley Song is cringey, while the Naina Phisal Gaye might appeal to Salman fans. The 3D aspect is just a gimmick.

When the rest of the aspects fail, we look to the actors to save the ship. However, though the lead actors do try their best, it is quite difficult to make any kind of impact with a silly script in place. But kudos to both Dosanjh and Sinha to be on the joke and attempt to look earnest. Dosanjh, especially, tries too hard to look the part of the struggling actor who can't resist a mirror. Sonakshi is as believable as a Gujarati designer (cue fafda and Modiji jokes) as SRK was as a Tamilian in Ra.One, though her enthusiasm is infectious. Karan Johar's double act had promise, but in the end, turned out to be an even worse memory than Bombay Velvet, a movie that this one tries to make a joke on. Sure, we have to admire his guts to spoof himself, but haven't we already seen him to do so in AIB Roast and even in his cameo in Shaandaar. The rest of the cast are just about okay.

Ultimately, a comedy works only when there is a joke in there. Stars patting themselves in their backs while trying to crack a jibe is not exactly everyone's cup of humour. At least, I can say this for myself and three random people in my nearly empty theatre who watched the movie as dispassionately as me. Occasionally, I heard them burst into forced chuckles, because they paid for the tickets to laugh, right?

Yay!

- The experimental premise (at least the idea of it)

- Diljith Dosanjh

- Meta humour works occasionally

Nay!

- Everything else!

Final thoughts

If you thought the jokes in the last edition of IIFA were funny and that Karan Johar making a mockery of himself amounts to a great gag, perhaps Welcome To New York is for you. The rest of us are wondering how they manage to convince all these stars to make a mockery of our senses, that too in 3D. Avoidable!

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 23, 2018 01:10 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).