To name your movie after Bollywood's most dhinchak hero and craft something so dull is sacrilege, says Sukanya Verma.
Deception is the name of the game.
For a while, it appears as though Govinda Naam Mera harks back to the era of cheesy entertainers when the David Dhawan-Govinda combination bore the stamp of raunchy romance and bawdy humour.
Except the heavily polygamous vibe of its posters, evoking Saajan Chale Sasural and Gharwali Baharwali, is just a front for this black comedy that has more twists than timepass on its mind.
You'd think that is a good thing; we've had a few in the genre this year -- Darlings, Good Luck Jerry and An Action Hero, but none as insipid as Govinda Naam Mera.
To name your movie after Bollywood's most dhinchak hero and craft something so dull is sacrilege.
Shashank Khaitan, the director behind the Dulhania movies (Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania, Badrinath Ki Dulhania) and Dhadak, commits this crime despite a troika of skilful actors at his disposal.
Slapstick comedy isn't a natural fit on Vicky Kaushal, but he submits himself sportingly to the stupidity and comes out unscathed.
Kiara Advani's energy is capable of far more heavy lifting than it gets credit for.
Somebody unleash the vixen.
Her co-star certainly has.
It's not a lengthy role, but Bhumi Pednekar is sass personified and cakewalks her way playing a character that treats everyone around her like dirt.
For all its attempts at subversion, Govinda Naam Mera cannot rise above its pile of cliches and contrivances.
From its opening voice-over carping about the big bad city of Mumbai for the nth time to its adherence to the Abbas-Mustan school of settling scores, it never becomes the caper Khaitan had in mind.
Things start out on a fairly ballsy note with Govinda's (Vicky Kaushal) back story.
A struggling Bollywood choreographer, this pushover son of a bald action director and junior artist is caught in an ugly legal battle over a ramshackle bungalow with his deceased father's other wife and son.
When not enjoying randy dreams about fellow choreographer and girlfriend Suku (Kiara Advani), he gets bossed around by his couch potato wife, Gauri (Bhumi Pednekar).
All dressed up in slinky negligees and nowhere to go, Govinda's crabby half appears to be in a self-imposed quarantine demanding 'do crore do, divorce lo'. The reason for Gauri and Govinda's fickle estrangement is left as unclear as their enthusiasm for an open marriage.
Relationships take a backseat when someone of significance suddenly drops dead and Govinda-Suku nervously take charge of things amidst a motley crowd of legal eagles, lenders, brokers, builders, drug dealers and cops hot on their pursuit or haggling them for money.
Double-crossing partners, tattle tale domestic help, commission hungry agents well-versed in crooked dealings abound as Govinda Naam Mera tries so hard to be fun it forgets to have any.
Having starry-eyed characters working in Bollywood doesn't amount to any meta humour yet expects us to titter at innuendoes like Ma-Ka-Bo as short for Malad, Kandivali, Borivali or Renuka Shahane (as Govinda's crotchety mum) parodying facial paralysis.
People drop figures of XYZ crores every two seconds, play a never-ending game of backstabbing, the outwitting shenanigans get tedious early in the show.
By the time the truth reveals itself, which we are pretty much pushed in a corner to learn, nobody cares.
Govinda Naam Mera streams on Disney+Hotstar.
