Remember that one relative who, at every party and social gathering, thrusts the same dance moves even when the song has changed? ‘Happy Phirr Bhaag Jayegi’ is the movie version of that person. This ensemble broad com­edy is a dance of mindless slapstick foot chases, cross-dressings and run­ning jokes that one way or the other aim to mime comedy by poking fun at national stereotypes. The film is a sequel to the 2016’s ‘Happy Bhaag Jayegi’. The original film was about a run-away Indian bride Happy (Diana Penty) acciden­tally landing up in Pakistan. It was a breezy comedy of manners with small town aesthetics that also raked in a decent box office return. The follow up is set in China and writ­er-director Mudassar Aziz has been handed a bigger budget which he blows up in remolding the franchise into a template that makes it more like the ‘Hangover’ films.

 

Character-driven humor comes from characters being themselves, but Aziz’s script tries to milk humor by throwing these characters into situations that feel forced and out of context. What begins as a mistaken identity comedy treacherously nose­dives into a ridiculous cross-country road trip that also sees the char­acters trying to break through a high-security Chinese jail.

 

The plot runs on two Happys. The first Happy (Diana Penty) and her musician husband Guddu (Ali Fazal) are in Shanghai after Guddu is invited to perform at a musical concert. The second Happy (Sonakshi Sinha) is a horticulturist joining a Chinese university as a lecturer. They land in Shanghai from the same flight. Their identities get mixed up in the airport and soon the horti­culturist Happy finds herself in the den of Chinese gangsters. They mis­take her for the other Happy, who, meanwhile, is whisked to the university and asked about her thoughts on bonsai plants.

 

In the midst of all this, the Chinese gangsters are also quick to kidnap Bagga ( Jimmy Shergill), the groom who Happy left at the altar to marry Guddu, and Afridi (Piyush Mishra), the Pakistani cop who was Happy’s reluctant ally in the first film. The gangsters press Bagga and Afridi to connive Happy into carrying out their plan, which involves redeem­ing a China-Pakistan business deal that has gone wrong. But before Bagga and Afridi can meet Happy, she manages to run away from the den and meets another Indian named Khushwant ( Jassie Gill) at a karaoke bar.

 

Khushwant, we later learn, is an interpreter at the Indian Embassy, and has been recently dumped. One thing leads to another until the wrong Happy, Bagga, Afridi and Khushwant, all form a team to dodge the Chinese gangsters and to help the horticulturist Happy on a per­sonal quest that takes the four of them on a wild-goose chase from one Chinese city to another.

 

Of all the actors, Shergill and Mishra come across well with their tongue-in-cheek verbal duels. But the central character of Sonakshi Sinha leaves you unsatisfied. Her performance feels awkward and low in energy throughout, as if she did the movie only because she would get to do some sightseeing. Jassie Gill, who’s the lead opposite Sinha, is so uninspiring that he’s dwarfed by the supporting actors.

 

‘Happy Phirr Bhaag Jayegi’ feels excruciatingly exhaustive because it tries to march with juvenile and crass jokes. The villains of the movie are so weakly written and driven by so laughable a motive that they never pose a real threat to the pro­tagonists. Unfortunately, the film runs out of urgency, tension, humor and entertainment well before it hits the finish line O