‘Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video’ Review: Cringe, Gag, Rinse, Repeat

Director: Raaj Shaandilyaa
Writers: Raaj Shaandilyaa, Yusuf Ali Khan, Ishrat Khan, Rajan Agarwal
Cast: Rajkummar Rao, Triptii Dimri, Vijay Raaz, Mallika Sherawat, Mukesh Tiwari, Tiku Talsania 
Language: Hindi

At some point during Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video, I started to have a bad dream. In this dream, there were no humans, only “defective” characters. There’s a cop who never sits because he has piles. There’s a half-blind grandfather who trips and lands on the bosom of his house-help. There’s a kid who lisps. There’s a marriage-averse spinster who hates sharing a name with her servant. There’s a pervert who stammers. There are two Suniel Shetty lookalikes called “Sunil” and “Shetty”. There’s a Stree-styled ghoul in a cemetery with a CD-ROM stuck in her hair. There’s a crook called Badshah who refuses to die. There’s a Daler Mehndi hit with a ‘Gangnam Style’ hook step. There’s a scene where dozens of brides confront a villain who runs a hidden-camera racket by dramatically baring their bridal blouses (“Here, film this!”), which is followed by a man’s monologue that condemns people for making and watching sex tapes; the women patiently wait for him to finish before they are fully clothed again.

It took me a while to realise that even this bad dream was a dream. I could swear I fell asleep, but Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video is just that kind of surreal experience. I’m too old and jaded to use terms like “worst”, “horrifying”, “tasteless”, “idiotic” and “Comedy Circus skit parading as a movie”. I’m also too young and jaded to type the entire title again without playing an alliterative drinking game in my head. So I’ll just say that VVKWWV is the sort of film that behaves like it’ll self-destruct if it goes more than four seconds without a juvenile gag, a 1990s song, a Vijay Raaz one-liner, a classist joke or a hollow social message. Its excuse is that the story is set in 1997, so nothing is off limits, not even a triggering thought-fart about suicide (“We were strong enough to not kill ourselves, but what about other couples?”).

It starts as a not-unwatchable romcom about a newlywed couple’s desperate search for their honeymoon sex tape that gets stolen in a home burglary. It quickly devolves into a glorified gag reel featuring crossed wires, mistaken identities, blackmailing, prison breaks, sermons about female dignity, and the most random detour into horror-comedy territory. The commentary is such a cash-grabbing afterthought that it defies the very essence of Stree; the only jumpscare is the one we get when it emerges that every Hindi movie with half a feminist theme might unleash a floating spirit for no conceivable reason. It’s almost as if director Raaj Shaandilyaa only changes course so that this template is distinguishable from his first two movies, Dream Girl (2019) and Dream Girl 2 (2023). 

In case you’re still wondering what the film is about, don’t. Vicky (Rajkummar Rao; on autopilot), a mehndi artist in Rishikesh, marries Vidya (Triptii Dimri; on autopilot), his long-time girlfriend, after scaring away her fiancé who claims that he’d rather marry a “naukrani” than a non-virgin; the punchline is that Vicky’s domestic help steps forward to inform the man that she doesn’t want to be a homewrecker. Vidya is a doctor, but there is more evidence of extraterrestrial life on this planet than her profession in this film. She is seen either in the kitchen, in the bedroom, or thrashing Vicky for convincing her to record their amorous deeds. When Vidya stops her husband from walking into a speeding train, he reminds us that she saved his life — like any great doctor would.

Mallika Sherawat appears as Chanda, Vicky’s free-spirited sister whose introduction scene is the only time the film stops being unfunny. Sherawat’s swag is short-lived because the moment she says, “This is my Bombay look”, a man responds with, "Good she didn’t come from Africa”. You can almost hear the artificial laugh track, Navjot Singh Sidhu’s roar and Archana Puran Singh’s (who also features here as Vidya’s gutka-chewing mother) mirth.

When in doubt, which is quite often, the story summons Vijay Raaz to play the fool. He’s such a competent actor that he nearly succeeds in a role that’s designed to give the viewer second-hand embarrassment. Even when he pretends to be an Arab sheikh in one of the film’s many climaxes — it has a horror ending, a serious ending and a comic ending — he looks like he’s trolling the film. The joke, however, is on us. The pressure to crack a joke is also on us. Perhaps it’s no surprise that the missing CD in VVKWWV becomes an excuse to shame the XX’s and XY’s of an entire nation for seeking out XXX videos. Alphabets and Roman numerals need a new home.