India-Pakistan unity and other tropes aside, “Happy Bhag Jayegi” is a mildly funny comedy that doesn’t try too hard to push the boundaries, but does enough to entertain you.

Aziz obviously has a flair for comedy but he needs to work on it. What he desperately needed here was either more time and thought, or a co-writer to help him build on the starting blocks he set up. Happy Bhag Jayegi is fun and funny in large parts, but the second half is also bogged down by how insubstantial and consequently forgettable it is.

Happy Bhag Jayegi is good in parts only, but the contrived screenplay will do the film in. In the final tally, it will not be able to do much at the box-office.

It entertains abundantly in the first half, but sadly the second half doesn’t quite manage to maintain the same pace and seems to fizzle out. The film has some great laugh-out-loud scenes that have been intelligently written, devoid of any slapstick humor.

Shergill is fast turning into one of Hindi cinema’s great sad sacks, and Mishra into one of its finest mutterers. Their collective enthusiasm renders the film’s lack of subtlety endearing and its gaps in narrative logic inconsequential. I’m having a hard time remembering the last time I watched a Hindi film this silly but still found myself laughing.

Of course, there are gaping plot-holes and slapdash contrivances galore but some genuine fun and many smart lines to balance things in favour of this Indo-Pak interaction of a different kind. If you come laughing out of this one you know there’s “padosi mulk ka haath” in it. A good handshake all the way.

Mutual tensions, politics and conflict are shoved out of view for a rom-com utopia in which, if only for 126 minutes, Indians and Pakistanis are on the same side. All they want is a barreful of laughs, and at least on that score, the movie doesn’t let them down.