Mickey Virus Review

Mickey Virus: It isn’t a crashing bore, but it’s neither smart nor exciting enough to work as a thriller. Strictly for TV viewing.

Rating: **

Director: Saurabh Varma
Cast: Manish Paul, Elli Evram, Manish Chaudhory, Varun Badola, Nitesh Pandey

Mickey Virus is one of those films which rope in fresh young faces with a promise of kick-starting their careers in Bollywood with a ‘different’ and a unique ‘storyline’, which on a closer look however, is the same old wine in a new bottle at a different bar. The film is a ‘thriller comedy’ (by an unwritten rule, a mainstream Bollywood film has to have its share of juvenile humour, otherwise its labelled an ‘art film’ by audiences) set in the world of hackers; its protagonist spends half the time romancing the leading lady and procrastinating the actual plot-line until the interval, after which the film picks up its neglected plot. But by then, its doused all the tension which is needed to keep us intrigued enough to follow the thriller. It proceeds to stretch its action sequences to fill up the runtime and reach the revelatory climax as quickly as possible. The ‘big reveal’ then goes Sherlock Holmes when it clears up the gaps and mysteries with long explanations (mouthed by the antagonists, however), except it has none of the grey cells of a Holmes or Poirot whodunnit.

This type of cinema is neither smart nor exciting; it’s simply a launchpad for its stars Manish Paul and Elli Evram. The former is popular for his anchoring work on music and dance programmes like Jhalak Dikhla Jaa while the latter is a Swedish Greek actress who uhm… looks a lot like model-actress Katrina Kaif, is currently participating in the seventh season of the reality show Bigg Boss, and has been considered too hot by Chandigarh college authorities, who have apparently banned students from possessing images of the actress in the campus area and dormitories (trust Wikipedia for putting up the most random/irrelevant information available!).

Manish plays a jhalla (a person who is considered an idiot by the society but actually isn’t) with an ordinary charm that’s enough to fetch him offers for supporting roles in average Bollywood films (mark my words, the actor will be typecast), but he lacks both screen presence and acting calibre to break in big in mainstream movies (that means he’s automatically falls under Mahesh Bhatt’s radar). Elli, on the other hand, is a mannequin like Sunny Leone, and her only job (even when she’s dead – yes, her character dies before interval and so it’s not a spoiler) is to look pretty at any cost. The camera highlights her assets so often, we hardly believe that Manish’s character Mickey wants her love more than her body. She has a toned body though, and she comes in short shorts, translucent sarees, flowery frocks and black brassiere – she could probably be one of to rapper Lil Wayne’s fantasies. She’s so static and lifeless (and yet alive and acting), the film-makers could replace her with a barbie and get the same damn results. Perhaps the lady drank a pint of the same immortality potion Goldie Hawn’s and Meryl Streep’s characters consume in the Robert Zemeckis comedy ‘Death Becomes Her’. Has anybody checked Elli’s pulse yet?

Mickey Virus allows these two woo each other until Elli’s character Kamayani/Kate George is killed. She is found to be one of the foreign hackers mysteriously bumped off using a lethal radionuclide cyanide. Mickey is devastated when he finds out about Elli’s actual identity; all through their affair, he was under the impression that she was just an employee of Excalibur Securities, and that he was only one who had something to hide from her. His secret is that he’s a very dexterous computer-programming hacker himself who is asked by ACP Siddhant Chauhan (Manish Choudhary) and Inspector Devender Bhalla (Varun Badola) to help them unravel the mystery behind the hackers’ deaths. The suspect behind the attacks is an on-line hacking group called Bhram, whose site is heavily protected by codes and life-threatening for anybody who dares to hack it; the site flashes a code ‘Run Run Run…’ and its message is obvious – the unfortunate hacker has to run for his life! Mickey may be a skilled hacker who works best under pressure, but he’s also a slacker who tries to evade the case altogether to spend his empty hours flirting with Kamayani, whom he sees for the first time at a vegetable market and then at a superstore. Then at her office. At a restaurant. At her home. In her bed. Till she’s dead. The case moves further. After the murder. Okay, I’m gonna stop with the poetry now… (He’s being framed, wrongly blamed) ‘Okay stop!’

There are certain commonalities a film like Mickey Virus, mainstream big-budget Bollywood movies like Phata Poster Nikla Hero, Besharam, Wanted and Khiladi 786, and mainstream small-budget offerings like Fukrey and Warning. Like big-budget mainsteam, Mickey Virus takes up a major chuck of its runtime on unimportant moments between its lead characters, and really begins only after interval. Like small-budget mainsteam featuring a ‘group of friends’, Mickey Virus begins with a song that shows everyone in Mickey’s group of hacker buddies – Floppy, Pancho and Chutney (all pseudonyms, obviously) – having fun. Their group leader (played by Nitesh Pandey), the Grand daddy of hackers is a Harvard alumni. By the end of the film, Mickey shall have to sing ‘Dost dost na raha (sivay ek!)’. Again, trying to keep the review spoiler-free (wink wink!).

There isn’t much positive to say about Mickey Virus, except maybe that the film’s not a crashing bore, and it’s bearable for its runtime. There are eight new releases this week, none looking very promising for a trip to the multiplex. Maybe you should procrastinate your trip to another week. Save your money for the best and watch Mickey Virus when it comes on TV. Ironically, that is exactly the platform that’s made it’s hero Manish Paul a household name today.

ourvadodara.in Rating Guide:
* = Avoid!!
** = Rent It / TV Premiere
*** = Book The Cheapest Seats
**** = Book The Best Seats
***** = Book The Best Seats + Buy The DVD!