Movie Review : Go Goa Gone

Rating : 2.5/5
Genre : Drama
Year : 2013
Running time : 1 hour 51 minutes
Director : Krishna D.K., Raj Nidimoru
Cast : Saif Ali Khan, Kunal Khemu, Vir Das, Anand Tiwari, Pooja Gupta
Kid rating : A

I read the reviews for this film, and everyone’s like yeah – go see it. I did, and am wondering – did we see the same film? Granted that this is Bollywood’s first zombie film ever – which is a big deal – it’s still an average-bordering-on-poor film. It’s as if the producers were conducting an experiment – how low can you go and still turn a profit?

Two young men Hardik (Kunal Khemu) and Luv (Vir Das) are stuck in jobs they are not interested in, love lives that aren’t going anywhere and presumably nothing interesting happening. So when roomie and straight-arrow friend Bunny (Anand Tiwari) has to go to Goa for a work-related presentation, they tag along. Once there, pretty girl Luna (Puja Gupta) tells them of this rave party on a semi-deserted island. The trio land up there, party away and wake up in the morning to discover that everyone else has turned into blood-thirsty zombies.

They find Luna, who’s luckily also still human. They also come across blonde, Russian party-organizer Boris (Saif Ali Khan) and his sidekick who are looking for a way out of the island. Boris has an accent, a gun and a one-liner “ I kill dead people”. And he does. However he disappears after a while on some mysterious mission and the foursome are left to fend for themselves . . .

I watched the trailer of this film and it had looked good. I mean the things you could do with the situation! Zombies in desiland – quite a novelty? Yes, for those of you who haven’t seen a C-grade American zombie film before. Raj N. and Krishna DK who’ve to date done fairly well in their productions (Shor in the City, 99 etc) run out of ideas here. In the first half of the film there are zombies on the island. In the second half of the film, there are still zombies on the island. Rinse and repeat ain’t quite working so well here.

The film is almost saved by its humor – I add a 1 star just for that. Kunal Khemu is a natural as a perpetually zoned out lad in the throes of laddish humor – i.e.; women as objects. Vir Das (of Delhi Belly fame) is kind of wasted as a somewhat senti, somewhat annoying Luv – a weak and dribbly character. I quite liked Tiwari as the by-the-book seedha-saadha Bunny who follows along with his more adventurous friends. Puja Gupta, who plays Luna, has as much acting talent as the zombies, and I’m being nice. Saif Ali Khan breathes life into the film as blonde Boris, muscular tattooed arms and all, so good job there.

The laugh out loud moments are many. Some of them are plain stupid and juvenile/distasteful but in the heat of the moment they come off OK. Other than that the film got boring after a while. How much can you do with a bunch of zombies on an island? Not much as it turns out because there is no sub-story, no sub-plot here. All we have are zombies, and they, like our heroes, have no redeeming qualities.

The other annoying thing about this movie – it can’t quite make up its mind about what it wants to be. Is it a full-on zombie flick? Is it a tale of three friends on a gone-horribly-wrong adventure? Is it a public service announcement against drugs and drink? A little of each. Maybe. Plus the zoned out threesome suddenly develop feelings – there’s some forced emotion here – repentance, guilt, sadness and even an attempt at being good. Gave me this icky feeling, because as everyone and his uncle knows (and the scriptwriters don’t) – there is no place for desi emotion in a zombie film.

So then, there are exactly 2 reasons to watch this film :

– You haven’t seen a zombie film before.
– You have seen a C-grade poorly produced American zombie film before and liked it.

You decide.

Kidwise : Not suitable for kids although this isn’t a scary film for adults. There’s blood and gore, and lots of slurping sounds as zombies feed on the dead. Humor is inappropriate for kids – so the A rating is apt.