A bland and overstretched comedy
The theme of mistaken identity takes the front seat in the majority of comedies starting from Gol Maal, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro in yesteryears to the recent Hera Pheri and Dhamaal. The same theme was adopted in the feature film French Biriyani which is streaming now on Amazon Prime Video after opting for a digital release due to shut down of theatres because of Carona epidemic.
Don ‘Powder’ Charles (Michael Madhu) breathes his last after giving a hint to his son Muscle Mani (Mahantesh Hiremath) to procure the ‘powder’ from a foreigner. Suleiman (Pitobash Tripathy) the driver who is entrusted with picking up the foreigner form airport picks up the wrong person, Simon who lands in Bengaluru from France to promote the medicine for ‘erectile dysfunction’. On the way, the cab driven by Suleiman gets blocked due to strike by cab drivers leaving Simon stranded on the road.
Asgar Ali (Danish Sait) the auto driver comes to the rescue of Simon and the journey to the hotel of Simon gets prolonged as Mani starts breathing down the neck of Simon for powder. Now Simon and Asgar have to escape as both get targeted by Mani and Inspector Mahadev (Rangayna Raghu) making way for more chaos and confusion ending in a bizarre climax.
The multitalented Danish is perfect in the role of Asgar. Nevertheless, he is underutilized and he gets lost in the motely crowd barely getting a chance to display his histrionics. In other characters, Raghu steals the show with impeccable timing followed by Hiremath whose mannerisms are well derived to provide some comic relief.
Sindhu Sreenivasa Murthy as Rahila shows promise while the Tik Tok star Disha Madan as TV reporter Malini shines in a minuscule role which fails to extract her potential fully.
The Hinglish Urdu slang prevalent in some parts of Southern India sounds quite funny and this was captured quite brilliantly with some of the dialogues delivered by Danish and others in this accent are quite amusing.
Cow eating the mobile and other scenes that follow this fiasco is hilarious and reflect the spark present in writer and director.
Music by Vasuki Vaibhav is the redeeming feature of this overstretched film with some peppy tunes and perky beats. Among three songs, the first one on Bengaluru is catchy with some good picturization and impressive choreography.
French Biriyani which is based on personal experience of director Pannaga Bharana during his journey from Bangalore to Chennai has failed to extract an engrossing script from the writer Avinash Balekkala. As a result, the plot gets wayward and clichéd with too many characters doing many things at the same time. These bits and pieces which are scattered all over could not be corroborated properly due to poor screenplay and shoddy editing thereby giving a lackadaisical look to the film.
Breaking heads with bottles during a song sequence, an unwanted funeral song, a chaotic climax where everybody gets riddled with the bullets and confusion in character building are some of the tropes that turned French Biriyani into a mockery of exquisite comedy.
Except for few bright spots here and there, many loose ends and several loopholes prevent one from savoring French Biriyani which is altogether a bland and tasteless dish.
Rating: 2.5/5
