OK Computer review: Hotstar’s new comedy wastes a wonderful Jackie Shroff, is too alienating to attract an audience

Not all dangerous reveals are alike. Some — and these are extra frequent — are made by individuals who don’t know how you can inform a narrative. However others, like this week’s OK Laptop, are created by of us which are considerably extra cine-literate. Within the span of 1 month, Hotstar has produced each.

Whereas 1962: The Conflict within the Hills was aggressively inept in each possible division, OK Laptop, co-produced by the all the time attention-grabbing Anand Gandhi, is significantly extra esoteric. Once we’re first launched to Radhika Apte’s character, she’s barging onto the scene quoting Isaac Asimov’s Three Legal guidelines of Robotics. It ought to be famous, nevertheless, that the present by no means mentions Asimov, and nearly seems to cross these ideas off as its personal.

Watch the OK Laptop trailer right here

OK Laptop borrows the absurdist tone of Jacques Tati’s movies and combines it with the kookiness of Kundan Shah. Vijay Varma’s Saajan Kundu, a policeman who uncovers a conspiracy whereas investigating a homicide, is rather a lot just like the everyman characters performed by Naseeruddin Shah and Ravi Baswani in Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro. And though the present is ready sooner or later, it tackles lots of the identical themes as that cult traditional did; a mishmash of company corruption, red-tape, and free will, with a splash of topical cultural commentary concerning the pretend information media thrown in for good measure.

When a self-driving automobile kills a person, Saajan is known as in to research. He’s joined by Apte’s Laxmi, and their dynamic can basically be described as an unscripted screaming contest that lasts roughly 4 hours. They’re gifted performers, however OK Laptop leaves them stranded in a multitude of nonsensical plotting and half-baked concepts.

The lo-fi absurdity of the present takes some time getting used to. It’s billed as India’s first sci-fi comedy, however even these making the declare know that this isn’t true. Set in a Goa the place majestic holograms dominate the skyline and drones buzz overhead, the present’s concept of the ‘future’ could be very clearly outlined by the B-movies of the Fifties. There are many beeps and boops, janky gizmos, and a full-fledged supporting character that appears like its been made out of discarded Nilkamal furnishings and appears like a Parsi aunty.

His identify is Ajeeb, and (in an instance of the present’s formidable core) he was created as a brand new deity for impressionable Indians to idolise. His arrival impressed a contemporary wave of nationalism, however despatched him spiralling into an existential disaster. After three months of meditation, Ajeeb re-emerged with renewed profession objectives. He turned a humorist.

The present conveys this backstory, admittedly one in every of its brightest concepts, in essentially the most clunky method — by information clippings and narration. Nearly half of episode two is an exhausting exposition dump.

As a result of there are not any actual characters to talk of in OK Laptop, it’s troublesome to kind an emotional reference to anybody. And the present itself retains getting distracted from the central ‘homicide thriller’ with such regularity that it could be a bit wealthy of it to anticipate us to care. In each episode, it introduces new ‘guidelines’ which are frankly unattainable to maintain up with. Episode 4, as an illustration, is set as one of the best time to disclose that Saajan carries custom-made cash that he tosses right into a wishing effectively, during which there lives a turtle, with whom he has some kind of connection, and so forth.

After which there’s the mockumentary aesthetic that the present retains forgetting it’s supposed to stick to, after having needlessly established that some kind of movie crew is following Saajan and Laxmi on their investigation. This could be the filmsiest train that OK Laptop embarks upon.

Additionally learn: Cargo film evaluation: Progressive however inert, Vikrant Massey’s Netflix movie wastes promising premise

However all crimes pale compared to the present’s remedy of Jackie Shroff, an actor who has the uncommon capacity to single handedly elevate any challenge by merely being there. In OK Laptop, he performs the chief of a cult that has forsaken know-how of all form; it is a terrific concept, contemplating that Shroff is probably the one actor in Bollywood able to believably beginning a quasi-religious clan, and extra importantly, attracting followers. As all the time, his ‘bindaas bhidu’ persona takes over his character Pushpak Shakur, to the extent that it nearly feels as if the crew convened at his farmhouse and secretly filmed everybody’s favorite ‘maushi’ in his pure habitat.

He might need achieved this for a lark, however his quarter-hour of display time in OK Laptop are extra partaking than any revolutionary concept that the present botches.

OK Laptop

Creators – Pooja Shetty, Neil Pagedar

Forged – Vijay Varma, Radhika Apte, Jackie Shroff

Observe @htshowbiz for extra

The writer tweets @RohanNaahar