What is with the Indian trio of fellas? Am I just “lucky” here? I mean, I swear I’ve seen fewer than 50 Indian films in my life and roughly half have involved the camaraderie of three young men. Psst … don’t tell Asia about 3 Men and a Baby, ¡Three Amigos! or even The Three Stooges; Bollywood would never make another kind of film.
Tool (Amit Sadh), fanboy (Sushant Singh Rajput) and nerd (Raj Kumar Yadav) decide to be entrepreneurs. Unhindered by cumbersome attributes like experience or money, the three young men decide it’s high time for a combination sports store/cricket training grounds in their local village. Before long, Kai po che! has all the cricket of Lagaan with none of that pesky music or conflict getting in the way.
It takes a test match span of time to get to real conflict, too. The hints are abundant, but the screenplay is weak. The fellas need money, so they get it from the local politician. When they can’t repay, OK, here come the leg-breakers, right? Wrong. Just means that
Omi the tool starts aligning himself with the political party – but that looks a great deal like where he was going with his life anyway. And Govind the nerd gets the love story, which he is not capable of handling – seriously, three handsome young sweaty hunky men, and not a one of them has a lover of some sort – hmmmm. Which brings me to Ishaan the fanboy. He runs the training part of the facility and takes a shine to a 12-year-old Indian Dave Kingman. Fanboy immediately sees the potential in Kingmanishaan and the plot goes horribly astray as we learn the finer points of cricket batsmanship. Is this where conflict is happening? Not really. Except that Kingmanishaan belongs to a minority political party/religion in the town … the one opposed to Tool’s party. Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. Just not getting there fast.
Kai po che! takes forever to set up, but has a reasonable payoff if you can outlast Indian cricket. The problem? Who in the name Gandhi can outlast Indian cricket?
Three fellas obsessed with cricket
Found themselves without a wicket
Is this about money?
Not at all, sonny
Whatever plot previous can stick it
Not Rated, 126 Minutes
D: Abhishek Kapoor
W: Chetan Bhagat, Pubali Chaudhuri, Abhishek Kapoor, Supratik Sen
Genre: Li’l epic
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Indian cricket enthusiasts
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: The impatient
