Mickey Virus Review

One Line Review: A "jhalla" virus cluck-clucking to add up a zing in the tale, but leaves the steam at the halfway mark. Alas!

Positive Points: Good character performances and the funky lifestyle of youngistan.

Negative Points: Hairbrained storyline, Atrocious direction, Lackluster comedy, Poor music.

Plot: A street smart hacker guy Mickey Arora (Manish Paul) manages the grocery store of his mother in the day time and develops viruses for anti-virus companies and weird softwares during the night time. Lazy Mickey leads a cool and "fundo" life with his hacking companions, Floppy (Raghav Kakkar), Chutney (Puja Gupta 1) and Pancho (Vikesh Kumar). Mickey Virus is the name by which the Delhi hackers gang know Mickey. His brain runs at lightening speed than any high-speed internet connection. Kung Fu Chameli is the cyberspace of Mickey and the place from which the entire hackers gang operate is a sloppy one, which is crammed with Chinese toys resembling gadgets. In the other scene, two hackers get mysteriously killed in day light and this paddles the accelerator for uncovering of the entire racket. ACP Siddhanth Chauhan (Manish Choudhary) and the Inspector Devender Bhalla (Varun Badola) focus on this suspicious matter and intend to get the help of a proficient hacker to solve the mystifying cyber crime case. Police come to know about the big time hackers gang called Bhram gang, who are the masterminds behind all this well-planned plot. Cops come across Mickey and they find him 'the perfect guy' to crack the website of notorious Bhram gang. Being initially reluctant, Mickey finally joins hand with cops in solving the issue.

In the meanwhile, a lover guy hidden inside Mickey awakens and falls in love with Kamayani George (Elli Avram), who works as a Relationship Manager with Excalibur, a Delhi based organization. Mickey tries to impress Kamayani with every trick he knows to delight the girl. After a period of time, Kamayani waves the green signal too and the love blossoms. Mickey plans to celebrate their one month anniversary and makes "a cool and musical cheap roadside treat" plan, but it becomes a fiasco, as Kamayani does not come. On the other side of the scene, Kamayani mistakenly tranfers an enormous amount of 100 crores to the wrong account number by pressing the last three digits wrongly. Shaken up by this, Kamayani instantly calls Mickey to her office to help her. Within no time, Mickey arrives and makes the best use of his hacking skills to rescue Kamayani from the further troubles. Post this, Mickey goes to Kamayani's place and spend the night there. Amidst of all this, the perpetrators again come in form and kill Kamayani in a fishy way. Now, in the eyes of Police, the criminal is the one, who was present with Kamayani on last night at her place. Now arises a real Check and Mate kind of situation in front of of Mickey and the further unfolding of events vocalize the quivering twists and twirls at the end.

Direction And Other Technical Aspects: The director Saurabh Varma developed a movie in which the hacking, which is otherwise considered as an illegal activity, lends a helping hand to catch the hold of the sinister criminals. The first half of the film compels a viewer to deliberately "catch" the otherwise invisible jokes and hence, makes it immensely boring. Talking in Mickey's language, one can delete the first half and put it in trash folder. Apart from the few tongue-in-cheek one liners, the other ones can not create the dynamism with their wittiness and thus, easily get wipe away from one's memory. Some comic punches like "Tera system bhi abhi bufferana tha" and "Bhagvan ne mere jubaan pe backspace kyon nahi lagaya?" strive hard to save the ship from sinking. The direction could not create enough magic on the silver screen and it could have been much better. Hope the director will find his mojo in his next. What makes the movie watchable is the cool Punjabi lingo, the young actors use in the flick as well as some big fat sports watches, flashy shoes and colourful funky T-shirts with kinky punches like "Baagadbilla", "Last Virus Standing" and "Jab Tak Hai Trojan". The song "Pyaar China Ka Maal Hai", which is used as a background score as well, seems to have nothing to do with the overall film and sounds pesky. Some scenes like Mickey harassing his ex-boss with some quirky and naughty tricks bring some amount of laughter. The thing that one could not digest is that the Delhi Police devote their 24x7 in solving this single case. The movie stays true to its name, as a bit of background score in the film is of cyber noises like pressing the "Enter" button, the sound that comes when one starts the laptop and the download finishing sound.

Though not directly, the movie seems a pitiable attempt to create a replica of the comic caper 'Fukrey'. However, the overall texture of 'Mickey Virus' takes it miles away from 'Fukrey', which was an out and out entertainer. The storyline fails to capture viewers' interest, as it seems stagnant at times and not heading further. Nevertheless, the second half of the film snatches grip and alters tone suddenly with some eyebrow raising unveiling of events. We can say like the concept was good, but the director forgot the road in the mid way, while driving the film further, as it could have been much better with a well-weaved storyline. The cinematography is average, as most of the scenes are of chase sequences in "Delhi ka mohallas". The art direction and editing can also be grouped into average category.

Performance: The television artist Manish Paul ascended the steps of tinselville with this outing and the actor tried his best. But, to sustain in the neck-deep race of the budding superstars, Manish has to do a lot of hard work. Elli Avram portrayed a short but key role. It felt like she is endorsing a specific make-up brand more than being an actress. Puja Gupta 1 enacted her role in a good manner and looked natural.

Varun Badola is the one, who stole the show with his witty Punjabi punchlines with suitable facial expressions. Manish Choudhary gave full justice to his role, as ACP with negative shades. Nitish Pandey left a great impression with his very short but very pertinent role as professor. The other starcast lent average support.

Music: The music by Hanif Shaikh was average, but not-so-catchy. The chances are high to see some youngsters humming "Pyaar China Ka Maal Hai", but the possibility is higher that they will replace it with the other one soon. The track "Tose Naina" sounds soothing, but no indications of it to top the chartbusters list. The other song "Sajna Ve" arrives like a wind and departs in the same manner.

Final Verdict: We can label it as a one-time watch virus, for those who are hardcore techies at heart. Even if you are not a gizmo-lover, you can watch it for one time to peep into inside dark view of the cyber world. In a nutshell, an entangling web that spotlights on some brand new fundas of hacking "dunia". Keep your antivirus handy to save your operating system from this virus!