Yes, Vodka Diaries is that kind of movie.
It makes you think. It makes you question.
Because barely ten minutes into the movie, you're questioning every life decision humanity has ever made - right from why we had to descend from the apes and not pandas (a planet full of 7 billion pandas - can you imagine the cuteness?), to alternating current versus direct current, to whether the landing on the moon really happened, to what your boss was thinking when he assigned you this movie, to what you were thinking when you agreed to watch this movie.
Oh right, I get paid for this. But you don't, which is why you honestly ought not to do this movie to yourself.
Don't watch it. That's it. Review done. Go home now.
But of course you won't. You want to know what this vitriol is all about. Fine then - here's our blow-by-blow account of this movie for you.
10:14 am - the fullhyd reviewer is looking around at what is a gigantic, cavern-like movie hall:
11 people in attendance? That's it? Guess they're from the reviewer community, too - 'sup, brother?
10:15 am - *picture shuru*
10:16 am - Kay Kay Menon is running down a mountainside:
Ah, well. He's a good actor, right? Guess this movie won't suck after all.
10:27 am:
Oh boy, was I wrong. Or Was I Wrong.
10:27 am - the ACP (yes, Menon's an ACP named Ashwini Dixit in this) and his wife Shikha (Mandira Bedi) are exchanging cutesy banter in bed that includes Urdu poetry that the wife has written:
A spattering of Urdu words here and there does not a poet make.
10:30 am - someone has died, and the ACP's been called in:
Thank good heavens, finally some action.
10:40 am:
Or not.
10:40 am - we're introduced to a motley bunch of people at a hotel called Vodka Diaries:
Okay, the venue from the title card is here. Maybe now the plot will pick up pace.
10:50 am:
Or not. These guys can't act for nuts. Also, the male actors look like utter sleazebags. They're here just to "bang" and "bong". You know what we mean.
10:55 am - the cops are investigating five murders now, but that isn't stopping the ACP's sidekick (Sharib Hashmi) from cracking an awful lot of jokes:
Honestly not sorry they're dead. Not one bit. They deserved capital punishment for that horror they called "acting" anyway. Also, the sidekick's awful lot of jokes? Awful. None of them land. Poor chap.
# rewind 10:50 am - a travesty of a song starts, Raima Sen enters the picture:
Sorry about that but it really didn't register. Guy in front seat is deleting old Whatsapp conversations by this point.
11 am - the ACP's wife just disappeared, and he's distressed and is telling the sidekick about it:
Meh. And that is the exact expression on the sidekick's face, too. No one cares, man.
11.10 am - it's a scene in the morgue with the five bodies:
Finally some film-making technique. Our interest is piqued.
11.11 am - intermission:
Wait, what?
In the interest of keeping things intriguing enough should you ever happen to catch this movie on the TV, or *shudder* actually head to the theatre to watch it, we won't tell you how things roll in the second half. Just suffice to say that when the big reveal happens? Pfft.
The only kind of people who'll like the reveal are those that haven't *cough* watched a certain *cough*
Scorcese and diCaprio movie about a place surrounded by *cough* water, or those that haven't read a recent novel on Dante's nine circles of hell *ahem*.
There you have it then - your reviewer can't think of any reason you would watch to watch this movie. Just get some two-minute popcorn and watch re-runs of what we mentioned in the previous paragraph. You will thank us later.