Pappu Can’t dance saala
Tepid cupid
Hindi (U/A) Cast: Vinay Pathak, Neha Dhupia Director: Saurabh Shukla Rating: Average
Vinay Pathak has been frowning ever since he landed in Mumbai from Varanasi. The food is bad, the traffic is worse, and the security guard of the government quarters where he stays (as an illegal tenant) spits out showers of paan blessings on him everyday.
Then he gets the nastiest neighbour in the form of Neha Dhupia, a chorus dancer who loiters around in clothes not visible to the naked eye. Dhupia ensures that Pathak goes to bed with a headache. Her parties run wild and late into the night, doing a high-decibel job on Pathak’s eardrums. The sanskar bug bites, and Pathak tries to instill some shame in the specimen next door.
The gnarls and brawls between the unlikely pair make for an interesting watch initially, but Pappu Can’t Dance Saala goes down the yawn lane the moment its common-man hero falls for the brash beauty.
Mission Impossible? Nay. Dhupia is a small-town girl too with a childhood spent gazing the moon and stars.
Vinay Pathak appears repetitive with his simpleton act, while Neha Dhupia impresses, with clothes or no clothes. Rajat Kapoor (as Neha’s mentor) makes an impact too, though he is later confined to the kitchen for some coffee-and-cake talk. Naseeruddin Shah shakes up the show in the end, but despite his last-minute cupid-push, our Pappu fails.
