Review: Not so perfect ‘Selfiee’

If ever there is a living example of how a brilliant story idea can suffer at the compromises or demands of commerce, it is this grotesque translation of the extremely well-made Malayalam original

Hyderabad: Akshay Kumar is no Prithviraj Sukumaran and that is the biggest difference between ‘Driving License’ and Raj Mehta’s ‘Selfie’. It is the larger than expanded life space of Bollywood that in a way is the unmaking of a brilliant idea.

If ever there is a living example of how a brilliant story idea can suffer at the compromises or demands of commerce, it is this grotesque translation of the extremely well-made Malayalam original.

A moment between a diehard fan and a matinee idol goes wrong and leads to a huge ego clash between the principal characters. Film star Vijay Kumar (Akshay Kumar) comes with his wife Diana Penty to Bhopal to shoot for a film. In Bhopal is Om Prakash Agarwal (Emraan Hashmi), an officer at the RTO, living with his wife Minty (Nushrratt Bharuccha) and son Gabbu.

The film being shot requires its hero to do a few stunts while driving the car and everything comes to a screeching halt when they realise that Vijay doesn’t have a driving license. The fan and the star meet. Unfortunately, the meet becomes an ugly spat helping the script sprawl over for about over hours.

The clash gets sharp leading to a public debate. The star on the pedestal is brought down in a moment and put back again giving the licensing officer the wrong end of the stick, till ironically the heroics of the star saves the law-abiding officer.

The interesting tale of a fan moment turning not just bitter but escalating to a huge public controversy with both players holding to their standpoint is a God send for a good film. However, given the potholes of commercial Bollywood the clash turns exaggerated, lopsided, counter-productive and a contrived salute to the star.

The crux of the film at a visual level is the clash between Akshay and Emran. This just does not take off. Akshay is larger than life and thanks to the script Emran is cut to size. In fact, it is a no contest, and this is not only because Emran does not match up to Akshay. It is quite obvious that the narrative is not intellectually, emotionally or creatively honest. It is by design slanted in favour of the star.

While the cast and crew are strictly prerogative of the creative divison, this is a clear case of suspect approach at the basics. To cast Diana Penty as the star wife only matches picking up Jacqueline Fernandez as a scientist in Ram Sethu.

Pleasant performances from the support cast helps but just that much. The tone and tenor of this Selfiee has more to brag than to display.