I tried to draw various metaphors for the way in which the word Entertainment was used. Unfortunately, the only one that made sense was the one which involved the murder of entertainment.

…all of Kick feels stilted as if its very aware that it is a Salman Khan film. The songs come in and out in appropriate commercial doses. The cinematography is better than what you would expect from a film of the Salman Khan genre, but that doesn’t give the film as a whole, too many bonus points.

I don’t like how the film was narrated or how they got to the conclusion or what specifically the conclusion was too. At the same time, story-wise I can’t quite tell what would’ve been a fairly reasonable change they could’ve made. Maybe even fluffy romcoms, while staying within the realm of exaggeration they are allowed, have started representing life all too well. Maybe that’s what doesn’t work about these films – they don’t take me to a fairyland and neither do they stay real enough for me to identify with them.

HSKD is cute. It is certainly DDLJ catching up with today’s times. So, it sheds itself of much dramatization and a good part of the run-time. But, it also doesn’t stimulate any emotion, let alone touch you from within.

Other than Vidya Balan, Ali Fazal has some brief moments that work well. Arjan Bajwa has a screen presence even if it requires him to hold one expression. The rest of the cast too have their share of screen time which they do well with.

None of this is good enough though given how many stories Bobby Jasoos, the film is trying to tell. Each distracting from the other, not letting the other come to its point.

The film is also very loud, in general, with almost one or the other character shouting under the guise of being full of life or full of anger. It doesn’t help that the characters are voicing out their thought instead of showing them with action. We know a lot of the villain’s characters from their own description of themselves to others, as a monologue.

I am not really expecting to enjoy a Sajid Khan film any time soon. But, is a little sensitivity too much to ask for from a filmmaker who has a reasonably wide reach? Does humor have to be at someone else’s expense?

Yet another, “let’s fight the system” film. This one takes on way too much and takes way too much time to express itself too.

The real problem then comes with the second half which isn’t explicitly downhill either. It’s just that it becomes a little predictable with characters taking clichéd routes. Four characters, four clichés. And as many predictable turn of events as there are situations. The fun yet satirical moments gradually deteriorate into “oh we left out this obvious point.”

And that drops Filmistaan from a ‘do not miss’ to ‘watch when you can’. And that’s as saddening as the beginning was heartening, because it hurts to not like a film like Filmistaan.

I’d call my 3 hours in the movie hall a success, considering it is nowhere bad to what I expected it to be. Do I give a film extra points for that? Naah. It is just what it is. A casual TV watch if you chance upon it.