This comedy fails to click

SUPERFICIAL: `Home Delivery.'

Home Delivery

Genre: Comedy
Director: Sujoy Ghosh
Cast: Vivek Oberoi, Ayesha Takia, Mahima Choudhary, Boman Irani
Storyline: 'Gyaan Guru' Sunny learns a lot about life
Bottomline: The movie's like a busy junction with characters and their subplots meandering through.

Sujoy Ghosh has a penchant for stories with several threads, as he showed us in "Jhankaar Beats." His "Home Delivery" is a busy little tale about `Gyaan Guru' to The Hindustan Times of India, Sunny Chopra (Vivek Oberoi), and all the characters who crisscross their way through his days.

There is Jenny, his girlfriend (Ayesha Takia), who is either trying to catch Sunny hesitating over their wedding or making plans for a family Diwali.

Pandey (Saurabh Shukla) and Gungunani (Tiku Talsania) are Sunny's annoying neighbours who are always dropping in, oblivious to the fact that they are not wanted.

Shukla, who is usually excellent at caricature characters, is mostly unfunny as the mithai-whacking entrepreneur.

Mahima Choudhary as Miss Maya, cleavage-flashing South Indian filmstar, is the most entertaining character. Object of desire of Sunny's pimply, adolescent memory, she's a constant presence, purring in his ear, egging him on to give Jenny the slip.

And finally, delivery guy from Mummy's Pizza, Michael Burnett (Boman Irani), who slips in and out of jobs.

Everyone knows what a phenomenal actor Irani is but even he barely makes an impression. Something to watch out for is the numerous guest appearances and celebrities that walk through the film.

This includes various members of his "Jhankaar Beats" cast, Abhishek Bachchan, Suniel Shetty and Aman Verma. Karan Johar plays himself and is one of Sunny's potential employers. The film tries to cover too much ground by being funny, trendy, sentimental and romantic but is too superficial to hold your interest for long. Except for the MTV-like trendiness.

SUSAN MUTHALALY

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