For a movie that revolves around friendship, it's difficult to understand why Stanley, Sunil, Ajith, and Justin remain friends. Ajith and Justin can't stand eachother for personal reasons, Sunil is such an annoying presence in public (and wrecking his friends' lives on several occasions), and Stanley is portrayed as the well-off, quirky problem-solver. Naveen Bhaskar (who has scripted some funny films in the past) gets the notion of contemporary friendship completely wrong, even if his intentions may be silly and harmless. In real life, if you have friends like these guys, it'd be best to stay away from them.
Stanley's quirkiness is the film's trump card, but it's a total swing-and-a-miss. The mental health and de-addiction aspects are treated as mere excuses to build moments and serve as nothing notable. Not only is the script lacklusture, Rosshan Andrrews is the wrong choice for director. Instead of picking apart the fallacies in the script and making the writer freshen up his thoughts, he makes his (usually excellent) cast work around all the nonsense in it. They can only do so much when the characterization itself is patchy and their supposedly unbreakable bond can hardly be felt in the film.
The only things I liked about the film are the following:
- Stanley's portable tape recorder and his gang's "vibing dance"
- A few lines in the second half that guys in their 30s now can relate to
- The realization that friends you make in your childhood/adolescence are the ones you'll always want around more, yet life always takes them away
There's definitely some potential in the plot. Imagine if the friendship had been established well in the first half (with bits and pieces of their adolescent years shown with a younger cast), the "drifting apart" episode was properly fleshed out, and the unlikely reunion of the foursome making sense to aid Stanley heal from his trauma, alongside some healthy realizations. If Naveen Bhaskar gave me the first draft of his script, I think I could've done wonders with it.
